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Special Report: Afghan pilots assassinated by Taliban as U.S. withdraws

63 points by aaron695 5y ago

Synaesthesia 5y ago
The mainstream media is always very hawkish, they are now offering all kinds of excuses not to pull out.
- hindsightbias 5y ago
  They just reflect the establishment in govt, military and IC. Trump and now Biden (and Obama on Syria) are contrarian on the war.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Im no fan, but do you remember how Trump tried to withdraw more and his own generals lied to him about the numbers? Seems that IC and bureaucrats had a different plan I’m not sure he gets exactly lumped in with Bush and Obama here. Too early to tell what Biden admin will do.
    - hindsightbias 5y ago
      It’s difficult in today’s environment to align with Trump on some FP issues w/o caveats but his first FP speech to the AEI at Georgetown (I think, it’s on c-span somewhere) was filled with him calling them and the neocons a bunch of losers who got us into dumb wars and how he probably wouldn’t hire any of them. The left mostly focused on his “take the oil” comments, not his “get out” statements. Pretty much everyone in Obama’s cabinet and staff is on record saying he screwed up not doing more (boots on the ground) to take out Assad. For all of Trump’s ranting on NATO, I really question the EU’s wanting us to do something about Putin, Ukraine, Syria, etc while shutting their nukes and building gas pipelines to Russia.
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antonzabirko 5y ago
Pretty sure none of this would have happened if Osama wasn't assassinated.
- sleavey 5y ago
  Interesting, I've not heard that view before. Why wouldn't it have come to this?
  - antonzabirko 5y ago
    IIRC the west intelligence community reported him as a sort of control on the taliban. How or why is a bit of a deep dive, but historically it looks like they were right.
- deepfriedbits 5y ago
  What? How do you make that leap? The Taliban were infamous for this type of stuff well before 9/11 or OBL's capture.
  - artichokes 5y ago
    Were they infamous for it before 1948?
javajosh 5y ago
I mean, at the end of the day, if the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban as their government again, isn't that what they should get, according to the principles of democracy? This would imply that anyone who worked with the US government, or are perceived as doing so, should leave immediately. You can't fight the tide.
- detaro 5y ago
  What suggests to you that the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban? > should leave immediately Would be a good idea, yes. Slight problem with that is that the western militaries seem to have forgotten all promises about that now...
- sriram_malhar 5y ago
  Eh? It is not a choice. The non-armed people of Afghanistan don't have a vote. --s
- wbl 5y ago
  The Taliban could put down their arms and compete in the electoral process. They have not. That says something about their popularity.
  - spfzero 5y ago
    But the Taliban have an ideology, which is not aligned with democracy, and they would not want to legitimize what they consider a foreign system put in place by a foreign power.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  The people of Afghanistan do not, to put it mildly, want anything in a unified sense. Their many civil wars illustrates that in a clear and bloody way. The argument you may be looking for is that Afghanistan should be ruled by Afghans, without outside interference. Most would agree, but there is no way from here to there without fighting it out, and whoever wins will rule very far from any western ideals. Perhaps the more realistic scenario is that as the US leaves, Iran, Pakistan, and maybe Russia, China and India will keep fighting proxy wars there. As an American, I'm OK with that as long as we stay out.
madengr 5y ago
As someone who grew up in the Cold War, it’s strange to see Russian and American aircraft used by a single military.
- corty 5y ago
  Half of Eastern Europe plus Germany used Western and Russian airplanes at the same time after the cold war ended. Before the Eurofighter finally arrived, the best fighter jets the Luftwaffe had were MIG-29s.
_Wrongthink_ 5y ago
Here we go again. Inb4 ISIS 2.0
co_pilates 5y ago
I don't know the answer to the overall mess there, but the USA should have, at the very least, offered to take these Afghani patriots and their families away to a safe place of their choosing. But who am I kidding, the USA barely takes care of their own soldiers, and has a history of abandoning the people of foreign countries that no longer hold interest.
- deleted 5y ago
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- yojo 5y ago
  There was a program in place to allow (some of) the Afghani helping the US to immigrate. It is just moving a lot slower than the troop withdrawal, leaving them to die. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1004991965/afghan-interpreters-who-await-visas-after-helping-the-u-s-now-fear-for-their-liv https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1004991965/afghan-interpreter...
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    We did the same damn thing last time when we fought a shadow war there against the soviets. Many historians credit America's abandonment of our Mujahideen allies with the rise of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      Shame. I kept thinking the US feels so different from when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. But maybe it hasn't, I have. Instead of being proud to be an American, all I've felt for years now, is shame. Shit like this is why.
- Amezarak 5y ago
  No. Have you read the Afghanistan papers? [1] I'm sorry, but these are not people we want in our country. We spent 20 years and trillions of dollars on these people, and they blew it all on corruption and graft. In many cases they charged protection money from us, then killed Americans so they could demand more protection money. There's a reason that two decades of military armament and training has resulted in a force that the Taliban is completely rolling over. If you haven't read the Afghanistan papers, I strongly recommend it. These people are NOT our (ideological or political) allies. They almost entirely consisted of people who were simply interested in using American power and money to enrich themselves. Not to mention problems of...extreme cultural incompatibility. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to... > From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. > Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene > "The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.” The whole situation sucks. We basically should have never been involved. It one of the most massive expenditures of American money and lives to absolutely no purpose in our history. Who knows what we could have done for Americans if that money had spent here. But we aren't going to improve anything by inviting our "allies" here. The most mindblowing thing about all this is why aren't more heads rolling? All these decorated generals and "experts" spent two trillion dollars and two decades supposedly outfitting and training up Afghan militias and police to American standards, and now according to their own assessments (in the article) they won't last six months on their own. How is it possible that the American military brass and foreign policy is so stunningly incompetent and nobody is being punished? Indeed, the people quoted in the article make clear the whole thing is just naked propaganda to spend even more time and money there after having utterly failed to do their job! [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...
reducesuffering 5y ago
Good luck on your own, women of Afghanistan. You should be ready now, right? /s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  That's a good snarky comment, and it points to a problem that is real — but what would you like to see? Should the United States have a military presence in every country that has human rights problems, forcing the local government to treat women/minorities/dissidents the way we think they should? I'd like to know what your solution is.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    The women's rights angle was only pushed to keep some Europeans in the alliance ( among them The Dutch ). And it fitted really well with Obama. Disclaimer : Dutch.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  On the other hand, young boys will probably be better off. The Taliban are said to be much less tolerant of the rampant sexual abuse of young boys which is otherwise widely practiced and accepted across the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi
numair 5y ago
Reminder to all of my fellow Americans about the messiness of the wars of which we are part — these guys were our alternative to the Taliban: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to... What would you do if it was your son, or brother, or nephew? And, what would you do to those who bankrolled them? We really gotta stop doing this.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  We need to stop doing wars when there isn't a direct, imminent threat to the United States itself, full stop. No "threat to our national interests", no "threat to strategic allies in the region", none of it. We make the world worse and we make the United States worse, and we abandon any moral high ground we may still possess.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    "We need to stop refactoring apps when there isn't a direct, imminent threat to users." * years later * "What do you mean 'technical debt'?"
    - abnry 5y ago
      Right. I don't really stomach how long we've been in the Middle East and I don't like the idea of those with incentives to go to war prolonging and pushing war. But geopolitics is very messy. Instability in a region can encourage other leaders to take advantage and cause even more geopolitical upheaval.
      - JasonFruit 5y ago
        Instability can cause upheaval, sure — but are we preventing instability or upheaval? It seems to me that we are prolonging instability and promoting extremism and terrorism by blundering in with our military. Is the Middle East, for example, any less unstable than it was three decades ago?
Mizza 5y ago
Horrible. Where is the outrage over Afghanistan? So much of our money was spent on this catastrophic failure while so many people in own country struggle with basic needs. I'm furious. Why is this colossal waste of money tolerated by the upper middle classes?
- erdos4d 5y ago
  Have you noticed that the stock market keeps going up? The upper middle class is feasting quite nicely, I doubt many remember where Afghanistan is. They certainly don't have any skin in that game, that is for certain.
  - altgeek 5y ago
    Exactly. Many opeds have been written about this. Here's one: https://time.com/5696950/bring-back-the-draft/ https://time.com/5696950/bring-back-the-draft/ The general populace, those that supply their children as cannon/IED fodder, has no control of the "game". I propose that all of Congress and those that work for the federal gov't must send their children into these wars as general infantry. Let's see what happens to our forever wars then.
    - quesera 5y ago
      > I propose that all of Congress and those that work for the federal gov't must send their children into these wars as general infantry. One does not send their adult children anywhere. You might argue that only legislators with children in the military are allowed to vote on certain bills. But that would be unconstitutional. Can't fight privileged exploitation with outraged incoherence.
- newnamenewface 5y ago
  It's incredibly lucrative and their children don't have to go.
- chmod600 5y ago
  Without numbers to compare what was spent in Afghanistan vs a specific domestic program, it's hard to evaluate your comment.
pengaru 5y ago
The VICE documentary This Is What Winning Looks like [0] was very illuminating for me, the situation there is a total clusterfuck and waste of resources. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  This is one of the best pieces of journalism I've ever seen. And it's not like we didn't have plenty of warning. Our experience in Afghanistan is exactly the same as the Soviets before us, and the British, like, five times before them. We Americans are such idiots in some ways.
  - sorokod 5y ago
    in many ways: In Syria outplayed by Russia In Iraq outplayed by Iran In Afghanistan outplayed by a league of local tribes.
s5300 5y ago
The U.S. also has an amazing history of leaving behind translators that they promised citizenship to, typically ending in their entire families being tortured and killed. Can't imagine we're going to get very many more people agreeing to work with us...
Normille 5y ago
>A White House National Security Council spokesperson strongly condemned “all targeted assassinations in Afghanistan” And they say Americans don't do irony!
- sleavey 5y ago
  Bin Laden was assassinated in Pakistan if that's what you're referring to.
  - TheNorthman 5y ago
    What is your point? What makes the statement hollow is that the US does it all the time, just not that often in Afghanistan (that we know of). Just as a fun fact because you didn't specify which bin Laden: Osama's son, Hamza bin Laden, was actually assassinated in Afghanistan by the US.
    - sleavey 5y ago
      I wasn't trying to imply that there was no irony, just pointing out that the most obvious US Afghanistan campaign most wanted person assassination took place elsewhere. But with what you and others have pointed out it sounds like Osama Bin Laden isn't necessarily the only obvious example.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    And countless other terrorist or suspected terrorists( or just bystanders) were assassinated by dronestrikes, so this is probably what he or she was referring to.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Guessing they were referring to these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drone_strikes_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drone_strikes_in_Afgha...
  - pseudo0 5y ago
    I assumed they were referring to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani last year [0], but there are plenty of less publicized examples as well. Technically that was in Iraq, but I think it's the method the US is objecting to, not the location. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleimani https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Solei...
LatteLazy 5y ago
It was a bad idea to go in. Having gone in, made a generations long commitment to people and started the work, it was a mistake to come out. But both mistakes were (are) wildly popular with the US electorate.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I agree. It is inevitable I think. I am glad the US is pulling out - there is no way we can fund the war anymore and regardless of what happens in Afghanistan, I would vote for no-more-war at every opportunity, including ending all the current ones.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    Why do you say the US can't fund the war? What percentage of the government budget is spent in Afghanistan?
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      I'd rather spend war funds on building our own infrastructure. American infra is falling apart. I think regardless of the %, it is simple - Afghan war has an opportunity cost.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      Remember, not long before the war on terror Clinton had managed to balance the budget. What's the deficit at now? Not all of that is Afghanistan of course. There was Iraq 2 too. And a bunch of other conflicts. And 2 rounds of tax cuts. I'd include 2008 bailouts but I think they ran at a profit in the medium term?
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    The cheapest option was to do nothing. The best opinion was nation building. The US choose to pay for nation building but give up before any nations were built. The worst of all possible worlds. There is an approach to politics that basically says people create excess value (more than they need to survive), and all politics is just deciding what to spend that on. Each "side" will sometimes squander resources just to stop the other "side" getting them: someone on the left will gold plate social security so that someone on the right can't use the money for tax cuts. I never really subscribed to the theory, but I have to admit the "war on terror" seemed designed from day one to bankrupt the US treasury. Either the people in charge were all really stupid or it was intended, and I don't think they were all stupid.
belter 5y ago
It is obvious that very shortly, and at their own pace, the Taliban will overtake the current government. They will even probably decide not to overtake Kabul, as it will be politically and strategically convenient for them. Russian will use Pakistan as a proxy, and will fill the void. The way the pull off was decided and implemented will prove to be a decision as bad as the decision to go into Afghanistan. They better have a good plan for a pull off in a hurry of the current US Embassy. As soon as the wind changes it is pretty clear to what allegiance the current Afghan Army will go with. "After troops exit, safety of US Embassy in Kabul top concern" https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-kabul-445f33e7bba08c382d9bc5f72bf48047 https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-kabul-445f33e7bba08c382... Lets open this haste will not make for Taliban flying F-16's...
crubier 5y ago
As a French person, I remember very clearly when war in Afghanistan and then Irak was decided almost 20years ago, and how obvious the outcome was for us even back then. In 2003 I was 16, but we already knew how this was going to end up, and tried to warn our American friends, yet we were bullied with the whole « freedom fries » bullshit. Since then, we saw events unroll exactly as we expected for basically 20years with no significant deviation from the idea we had of how things would go. Really frustrating and tragic situation.
- the-dude 5y ago
  I am not trying to devalue your Frenchness, but there were protests around the world at the time. In London for example, but Amsterdam too ( I was there ).
  - crubier 5y ago
    Oh yes, Europe in general was against it. France got the honor of getting canceled before cancelling was cool but I’m not saying we were smarter than the rest. But America was fooled
    - the-dude 5y ago
      > But America was fooled Do you mean the government or the public?
      - nate_meurer 5y ago
        Fucking both. The invasions were popular with the American public. Who could argue with both the New York Times and Colin Powell?
      - crubier 5y ago
        Both. The people in power have power over the government through lobbying and over the public through press and media. So both were fooled indeed
guilhas 5y ago
How far we have not come https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-about-osama-bin-laden-2013-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-abo...
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
Its impossible to subdue a society little removed from the 7th century, unless you're willing to replicate the actions of Alexander the Great, Mohammed, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Abdur Rahman Khan: That is, slaughter or enslave all males from any tribes who oppose you [1], take their women for your own [2], and enforce your own culture, language and religion [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_weddings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_weddings [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristan_Province https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristan_Province All of that is rather politically incorrect these days, so Afghanistan and nations like it will remain unconquerable except for nations like China who are still willing to carry out that level of annexation and assimilation.
- deleted 5y ago
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neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/RcmME https://archive.is/RcmME

63 points by aaron695 5y ago

Synaesthesia 5y ago

The mainstream media is always very hawkish, they are now offering all kinds of excuses not to pull out.

hindsightbias 5y ago
They just reflect the establishment in govt, military and IC. Trump and now Biden (and Obama on Syria) are contrarian on the war.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Im no fan, but do you remember how Trump tried to withdraw more and his own generals lied to him about the numbers? Seems that IC and bureaucrats had a different plan I’m not sure he gets exactly lumped in with Bush and Obama here. Too early to tell what Biden admin will do.
  - hindsightbias 5y ago
    It’s difficult in today’s environment to align with Trump on some FP issues w/o caveats but his first FP speech to the AEI at Georgetown (I think, it’s on c-span somewhere) was filled with him calling them and the neocons a bunch of losers who got us into dumb wars and how he probably wouldn’t hire any of them. The left mostly focused on his “take the oil” comments, not his “get out” statements. Pretty much everyone in Obama’s cabinet and staff is on record saying he screwed up not doing more (boots on the ground) to take out Assad. For all of Trump’s ranting on NATO, I really question the EU’s wanting us to do something about Putin, Ukraine, Syria, etc while shutting their nukes and building gas pipelines to Russia.
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antonzabirko 5y ago

Pretty sure none of this would have happened if Osama wasn't assassinated.

sleavey 5y ago
Interesting, I've not heard that view before. Why wouldn't it have come to this?
- antonzabirko 5y ago
  IIRC the west intelligence community reported him as a sort of control on the taliban. How or why is a bit of a deep dive, but historically it looks like they were right.
deepfriedbits 5y ago
What? How do you make that leap? The Taliban were infamous for this type of stuff well before 9/11 or OBL's capture.
- artichokes 5y ago
  Were they infamous for it before 1948?

javajosh 5y ago

I mean, at the end of the day, if the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban as their government again, isn't that what they should get, according to the principles of democracy? This would imply that anyone who worked with the US government, or are perceived as doing so, should leave immediately. You can't fight the tide.

detaro 5y ago
What suggests to you that the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban? > should leave immediately Would be a good idea, yes. Slight problem with that is that the western militaries seem to have forgotten all promises about that now...
sriram_malhar 5y ago
Eh? It is not a choice. The non-armed people of Afghanistan don't have a vote. --s
wbl 5y ago
The Taliban could put down their arms and compete in the electoral process. They have not. That says something about their popularity.
- spfzero 5y ago
  But the Taliban have an ideology, which is not aligned with democracy, and they would not want to legitimize what they consider a foreign system put in place by a foreign power.
BurningFrog 5y ago
The people of Afghanistan do not, to put it mildly, want anything in a unified sense. Their many civil wars illustrates that in a clear and bloody way. The argument you may be looking for is that Afghanistan should be ruled by Afghans, without outside interference. Most would agree, but there is no way from here to there without fighting it out, and whoever wins will rule very far from any western ideals. Perhaps the more realistic scenario is that as the US leaves, Iran, Pakistan, and maybe Russia, China and India will keep fighting proxy wars there. As an American, I'm OK with that as long as we stay out.

madengr 5y ago

As someone who grew up in the Cold War, it’s strange to see Russian and American aircraft used by a single military.

corty 5y ago
Half of Eastern Europe plus Germany used Western and Russian airplanes at the same time after the cold war ended. Before the Eurofighter finally arrived, the best fighter jets the Luftwaffe had were MIG-29s.

_Wrongthink_ 5y ago

Here we go again. Inb4 ISIS 2.0

co_pilates 5y ago

I don't know the answer to the overall mess there, but the USA should have, at the very least, offered to take these Afghani patriots and their families away to a safe place of their choosing. But who am I kidding, the USA barely takes care of their own soldiers, and has a history of abandoning the people of foreign countries that no longer hold interest.

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yojo 5y ago
There was a program in place to allow (some of) the Afghani helping the US to immigrate. It is just moving a lot slower than the troop withdrawal, leaving them to die. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1004991965/afghan-interpreters-who-await-visas-after-helping-the-u-s-now-fear-for-their-liv https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1004991965/afghan-interpreter...
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  We did the same damn thing last time when we fought a shadow war there against the soviets. Many historians credit America's abandonment of our Mujahideen allies with the rise of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    Shame. I kept thinking the US feels so different from when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. But maybe it hasn't, I have. Instead of being proud to be an American, all I've felt for years now, is shame. Shit like this is why.
Amezarak 5y ago
No. Have you read the Afghanistan papers? [1] I'm sorry, but these are not people we want in our country. We spent 20 years and trillions of dollars on these people, and they blew it all on corruption and graft. In many cases they charged protection money from us, then killed Americans so they could demand more protection money. There's a reason that two decades of military armament and training has resulted in a force that the Taliban is completely rolling over. If you haven't read the Afghanistan papers, I strongly recommend it. These people are NOT our (ideological or political) allies. They almost entirely consisted of people who were simply interested in using American power and money to enrich themselves. Not to mention problems of...extreme cultural incompatibility. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to... > From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. > Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene > "The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.” The whole situation sucks. We basically should have never been involved. It one of the most massive expenditures of American money and lives to absolutely no purpose in our history. Who knows what we could have done for Americans if that money had spent here. But we aren't going to improve anything by inviting our "allies" here. The most mindblowing thing about all this is why aren't more heads rolling? All these decorated generals and "experts" spent two trillion dollars and two decades supposedly outfitting and training up Afghan militias and police to American standards, and now according to their own assessments (in the article) they won't last six months on their own. How is it possible that the American military brass and foreign policy is so stunningly incompetent and nobody is being punished? Indeed, the people quoted in the article make clear the whole thing is just naked propaganda to spend even more time and money there after having utterly failed to do their job! [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...

reducesuffering 5y ago

Good luck on your own, women of Afghanistan. You should be ready now, right? /s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women

JasonFruit 5y ago
That's a good snarky comment, and it points to a problem that is real — but what would you like to see? Should the United States have a military presence in every country that has human rights problems, forcing the local government to treat women/minorities/dissidents the way we think they should? I'd like to know what your solution is.
- the-dude 5y ago
  The women's rights angle was only pushed to keep some Europeans in the alliance ( among them The Dutch ). And it fitted really well with Obama. Disclaimer : Dutch.
nate_meurer 5y ago
On the other hand, young boys will probably be better off. The Taliban are said to be much less tolerant of the rampant sexual abuse of young boys which is otherwise widely practiced and accepted across the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

numair 5y ago

Reminder to all of my fellow Americans about the messiness of the wars of which we are part — these guys were our alternative to the Taliban: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to... What would you do if it was your son, or brother, or nephew? And, what would you do to those who bankrolled them? We really gotta stop doing this.

JasonFruit 5y ago
We need to stop doing wars when there isn't a direct, imminent threat to the United States itself, full stop. No "threat to our national interests", no "threat to strategic allies in the region", none of it. We make the world worse and we make the United States worse, and we abandon any moral high ground we may still possess.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  "We need to stop refactoring apps when there isn't a direct, imminent threat to users." * years later * "What do you mean 'technical debt'?"
  - abnry 5y ago
    Right. I don't really stomach how long we've been in the Middle East and I don't like the idea of those with incentives to go to war prolonging and pushing war. But geopolitics is very messy. Instability in a region can encourage other leaders to take advantage and cause even more geopolitical upheaval.
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      Instability can cause upheaval, sure — but are we preventing instability or upheaval? It seems to me that we are prolonging instability and promoting extremism and terrorism by blundering in with our military. Is the Middle East, for example, any less unstable than it was three decades ago?

Mizza 5y ago

Horrible. Where is the outrage over Afghanistan? So much of our money was spent on this catastrophic failure while so many people in own country struggle with basic needs. I'm furious. Why is this colossal waste of money tolerated by the upper middle classes?

erdos4d 5y ago
Have you noticed that the stock market keeps going up? The upper middle class is feasting quite nicely, I doubt many remember where Afghanistan is. They certainly don't have any skin in that game, that is for certain.
- altgeek 5y ago
  Exactly. Many opeds have been written about this. Here's one: https://time.com/5696950/bring-back-the-draft/ https://time.com/5696950/bring-back-the-draft/ The general populace, those that supply their children as cannon/IED fodder, has no control of the "game". I propose that all of Congress and those that work for the federal gov't must send their children into these wars as general infantry. Let's see what happens to our forever wars then.
  - quesera 5y ago
    > I propose that all of Congress and those that work for the federal gov't must send their children into these wars as general infantry. One does not send their adult children anywhere. You might argue that only legislators with children in the military are allowed to vote on certain bills. But that would be unconstitutional. Can't fight privileged exploitation with outraged incoherence.
newnamenewface 5y ago
It's incredibly lucrative and their children don't have to go.
chmod600 5y ago
Without numbers to compare what was spent in Afghanistan vs a specific domestic program, it's hard to evaluate your comment.

pengaru 5y ago

The VICE documentary This Is What Winning Looks like [0] was very illuminating for me, the situation there is a total clusterfuck and waste of resources. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI

nate_meurer 5y ago
This is one of the best pieces of journalism I've ever seen. And it's not like we didn't have plenty of warning. Our experience in Afghanistan is exactly the same as the Soviets before us, and the British, like, five times before them. We Americans are such idiots in some ways.
- sorokod 5y ago
  in many ways: In Syria outplayed by Russia In Iraq outplayed by Iran In Afghanistan outplayed by a league of local tribes.

s5300 5y ago

The U.S. also has an amazing history of leaving behind translators that they promised citizenship to, typically ending in their entire families being tortured and killed. Can't imagine we're going to get very many more people agreeing to work with us...

Normille 5y ago

>A White House National Security Council spokesperson strongly condemned “all targeted assassinations in Afghanistan” And they say Americans don't do irony!

sleavey 5y ago
Bin Laden was assassinated in Pakistan if that's what you're referring to.
- TheNorthman 5y ago
  What is your point? What makes the statement hollow is that the US does it all the time, just not that often in Afghanistan (that we know of). Just as a fun fact because you didn't specify which bin Laden: Osama's son, Hamza bin Laden, was actually assassinated in Afghanistan by the US.
  - sleavey 5y ago
    I wasn't trying to imply that there was no irony, just pointing out that the most obvious US Afghanistan campaign most wanted person assassination took place elsewhere. But with what you and others have pointed out it sounds like Osama Bin Laden isn't necessarily the only obvious example.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  And countless other terrorist or suspected terrorists( or just bystanders) were assassinated by dronestrikes, so this is probably what he or she was referring to.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Guessing they were referring to these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drone_strikes_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drone_strikes_in_Afgha...
- pseudo0 5y ago
  I assumed they were referring to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani last year [0], but there are plenty of less publicized examples as well. Technically that was in Iraq, but I think it's the method the US is objecting to, not the location. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleimani https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Solei...

LatteLazy 5y ago

It was a bad idea to go in. Having gone in, made a generations long commitment to people and started the work, it was a mistake to come out. But both mistakes were (are) wildly popular with the US electorate.

systemvoltage 5y ago
I agree. It is inevitable I think. I am glad the US is pulling out - there is no way we can fund the war anymore and regardless of what happens in Afghanistan, I would vote for no-more-war at every opportunity, including ending all the current ones.
- chmod600 5y ago
  Why do you say the US can't fund the war? What percentage of the government budget is spent in Afghanistan?
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    I'd rather spend war funds on building our own infrastructure. American infra is falling apart. I think regardless of the %, it is simple - Afghan war has an opportunity cost.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    Remember, not long before the war on terror Clinton had managed to balance the budget. What's the deficit at now? Not all of that is Afghanistan of course. There was Iraq 2 too. And a bunch of other conflicts. And 2 rounds of tax cuts. I'd include 2008 bailouts but I think they ran at a profit in the medium term?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  The cheapest option was to do nothing. The best opinion was nation building. The US choose to pay for nation building but give up before any nations were built. The worst of all possible worlds. There is an approach to politics that basically says people create excess value (more than they need to survive), and all politics is just deciding what to spend that on. Each "side" will sometimes squander resources just to stop the other "side" getting them: someone on the left will gold plate social security so that someone on the right can't use the money for tax cuts. I never really subscribed to the theory, but I have to admit the "war on terror" seemed designed from day one to bankrupt the US treasury. Either the people in charge were all really stupid or it was intended, and I don't think they were all stupid.

belter 5y ago

It is obvious that very shortly, and at their own pace, the Taliban will overtake the current government. They will even probably decide not to overtake Kabul, as it will be politically and strategically convenient for them. Russian will use Pakistan as a proxy, and will fill the void. The way the pull off was decided and implemented will prove to be a decision as bad as the decision to go into Afghanistan. They better have a good plan for a pull off in a hurry of the current US Embassy. As soon as the wind changes it is pretty clear to what allegiance the current Afghan Army will go with. "After troops exit, safety of US Embassy in Kabul top concern" https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-kabul-445f33e7bba08c382d9bc5f72bf48047 https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-kabul-445f33e7bba08c382... Lets open this haste will not make for Taliban flying F-16's...

crubier 5y ago

As a French person, I remember very clearly when war in Afghanistan and then Irak was decided almost 20years ago, and how obvious the outcome was for us even back then. In 2003 I was 16, but we already knew how this was going to end up, and tried to warn our American friends, yet we were bullied with the whole « freedom fries » bullshit. Since then, we saw events unroll exactly as we expected for basically 20years with no significant deviation from the idea we had of how things would go. Really frustrating and tragic situation.

the-dude 5y ago
I am not trying to devalue your Frenchness, but there were protests around the world at the time. In London for example, but Amsterdam too ( I was there ).
- crubier 5y ago
  Oh yes, Europe in general was against it. France got the honor of getting canceled before cancelling was cool but I’m not saying we were smarter than the rest. But America was fooled
  - the-dude 5y ago
    > But America was fooled Do you mean the government or the public?
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      Fucking both. The invasions were popular with the American public. Who could argue with both the New York Times and Colin Powell?
    - crubier 5y ago
      Both. The people in power have power over the government through lobbying and over the public through press and media. So both were fooled indeed

guilhas 5y ago

How far we have not come https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-about-osama-bin-laden-2013-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-abo...

ArkanExplorer 5y ago

Its impossible to subdue a society little removed from the 7th century, unless you're willing to replicate the actions of Alexander the Great, Mohammed, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Abdur Rahman Khan: That is, slaughter or enslave all males from any tribes who oppose you [1], take their women for your own [2], and enforce your own culture, language and religion [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_weddings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_weddings [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristan_Province https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristan_Province All of that is rather politically incorrect these days, so Afghanistan and nations like it will remain unconquerable except for nations like China who are still willing to carry out that level of annexation and assimilation.

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neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/RcmME https://archive.is/RcmME