Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[NotThePars]

4 hours ago, Detournement said:

Allen Dulles is turning in his grave. 

These are the same losers that pretend they have Havana Syndrome, a fictional malady

[GordonS]

10 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Around quarter of a million deaths caused by the conflict since 2001. 

According to the UN civilian casualties have been around 3,000 per year since the start of the war - not sure what your figure includes.

Twice as many also injured though, which presumably includes a lot of grim stuff.

These figures might not be much lower over the next 20 years.

[GordonS]

13 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

These are the same losers that pretend they have Havana Syndrome, a fictional malady

God forbid any human being should have an emotional reaction to the likely imminent murders of people that they've worked with.

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, GordonS said:

not sure what your figure includes.

Everyone.

Quote

About 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zone since 2001. More than 71,000 of those killed have been civilians.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan

My point was that deciding if remaining there is worthwhile or not based on the number of Western soldiers killed, is not the calculation that should be made, it's whether it's doing the Afghani people any good, on their own terms, not ours, and whether it's making the world any safer. Nearly all of the soldiers on the frontline defending the Government have been Afghani in recent years, so of course the death toll of Western soldiers has been low.

[NotThePars]

19 minutes ago, GordonS said:

God forbid any human being should have an emotional reaction to the likely imminent murders of people that they've worked with.

Zero sympathy for the secondary trauma of willing participants of empire, sorry. In the long, long list of people whose lives have been ruined by the American intervention in Afghanistan the ghouls of the State Department, the CIA and every other US state apparatus barely figure.

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Everyone.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan

My point was that deciding if remaining there is worthwhile or not based on the number of Western soldiers killed, is not the calculation that should be made, it's whether it's doing the Afghani people any good, on their own terms, not ours, and whether it's making the world any safer. Nearly all of the soldiers on the frontline defending the Government have been Afghani in recent years, so of course the death toll of Western soldiers has been low.

That site says 71,000 civilians, including those killed in Pakistan. I couldn't care less how many Taliban were killed. The only good Taliban...

The reason for the occupation of Afghanistan wasn't for the good of the Afghan people, it was to stop the country from being used as terror HQ. Not just 9/11, it was everything that went before it too - the embassies, the USS Cole, the first World Trade Centre attack, all the rest.

The reality is that people in the west - not just the governments - were willing to accept a lot of Afghan civilian, police and military deaths each year if it meant they remained safe from planes getting flown into buildings.

That's not my opinion btw.

All I know is that the Afghan people were fucked if we stayed and they're fucked now we've left, just in a different way. Maybe fewer deaths, but a lot less freedom for everyone. 

[GordonS]

Just now, NotThePars said:

Zero sympathy for the secondary trauma of willing participants of empire, sorry. In the long, long list of people whose lives have been ruined by the American intervention in Afghanistan the ghouls of the State Department, the CIA and every other US state apparatus barely figure.

This is a really appallingly unkind, ignorant, spiteful attitude, based on a completely wrongheaded assumption. Apart from anything else she's not part of the state, nor are any other academics or journalists. WTF are you bringing the CIA into this for???

Watching the Taliban sweep across the country they lived in and in many cases worked hard to help, turning out the lights for women, science, art, education, music and everything else, murdering anyone they regard as not sufficiently rabid, is properly traumatising. And as I said, they would have worked with and gotten to know lots of locals who are now at very high risk of watching their families being murdered in front of them before getting hung in the town square.

You'd have to be a hard-hearted b*****d not to be profoundly affected by that, regardless of how safe you are yourself. And you have to be sorely lacking in basic human empathy not to recognise that.

I'll not be having a back-on-forth on this, that's plenty.

[vikingTON]

3 minutes ago, GordonS said:

 

I'll not be having a back-on-forth on this, that's plenty.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, GordonS said:

That site says 71,000 civilians, including those killed in Pakistan. I couldn't care less how many Taliban were killed. The only good Taliban...

The reason for the occupation of Afghanistan wasn't for the good of the Afghan people, it was to stop the country from being used as terror HQ. Not just 9/11, it was everything that went before it too - the embassies, the USS Cole, the first World Trade Centre attack, all the rest.

The reality is that people in the west - not just the governments - were willing to accept a lot of Afghan civilian, police and military deaths each year if it meant they remained safe from planes getting flown into buildings.

That's not my opinion btw.

All I know is that the Afghan people were fucked if we stayed and they're fucked now we've left, just in a different way. Maybe fewer deaths, but a lot less freedom for everyone. 

Al-Qaeda were destroyed in Afghanistan by 2002, the "Taliban" just went home and got on with their lives as best they could, and prepared for what came next. Which was the Americans wasting all the effort they'd made there to launch a war against a country that had zero to do with 9/11, Iraq, creating far more terrorists than they ever managed to kill in Afghanistan. By the time their attention had switched back to Afghanistan it was too late, the Taliban had reasserted itself all over the country and the corrupt stooges they'd put in power in Kabul had lost much of their backing. Now the inevitable endgame is coming until the next round of bloodletting happens when the fragile Taliban led coalition falls apart.

[vikingTON]

Afghanistan will most likely be China's problem to deal with if any terrorist groups that the Taliban chooses to harbour turns their attention to Xinjiang. Either that checks the terrorism issue or the Chinese pick up the slack. 

File this under 'not our fucking problem' then, instead of having the same liberals who deplored intervention now deploring withdrawal in equal measure because women won't get equal rights under the old regime*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Probably should have backed the communists in the first place, if they really wanted to achieve that in Afghanistan. 

[NotThePars]

1 minute ago, virginton said:

Afghanistan will most likely be China's problem to deal with if any terrorist groups that the Taliban chooses to harbour turns their attention to Xinjiang. Either that checks the terrorism issue or the Chinese pick up the slack. 

File this under 'not our fucking problem' then, instead of having the same liberals who deplored intervention now deploring withdrawal in equal measure because women won't get equal rights under the old regime*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Probably should have backed the communists in the first place, if they really wanted to achieve that in Afghanistan. 

There's a deeply funny moment in the movie 12 Strong where Chris Hemsworth's surrogate Afghan dad eulogises the progressive society they had pre-Taliban where women could be educated and arts and culture and flourished and it's like "damn, who was in charge then and what happened to them? Sure hope Chris Hemsworth's team didn't have anything to do with that disappearing."

[welshbairn]

The Taliban are just a more effective, popular and committed version of the Countryside Alliance, and much better dressed.

[welshbairn]

42 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

There's a deeply funny moment in the movie 12 Strong where Chris Hemsworth's surrogate Afghan dad eulogises the progressive society they had pre-Taliban where women could be educated and arts and culture and flourished and it's like "damn, who was in charge then and what happened to them? Sure hope Chris Hemsworth's team didn't have anything to do with that disappearing."

America has tried to do the same as the Soviets did, transform the lives of city dwellers into 20/21st century norms while leaving most of the country in the dark ages. The Soviets were failing even without western help to the Mujahedeen and other rebels. People who have rarely come into contact with health services or non religious education, especially for girls, aren't likely to be seduced by the offer, and are more likely to ally themselves with forces who aren't dropping bombs all over the place, and speak of keeping to the old traditions.

[ICTChris]

One significant geopolitical result of the violence there will be a new wave of refugees, initially to their neighbours but no doubt heading West in due course. The EU response to this is likely to be significantly harder than it was in the mid 2010s.

[Detournement]

UN/US reported deaths are always much lower than reality. 

Even still coming on and claiming 71,000 deaths and all the life changing injuries and psychological tramua is acceptable is staggering. A very unique poster is GordonS.

[LongTimeLurker]

The Afghan intervention was always a farce. Let's put a bunch of drug lords and war criminals in charge and pretend we are creating a democracy. Anyone disagrees we'll round em up, put em in a field and bomb the b*****ds. All that remains now is for some latter day Sandy Gall from whatever western country was sensible enough not to get involved to send the news reports describing what happens after the last American chopper has left. That's unlikely to be pretty...

Edited August 14, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[Boo Khaki]

1 hour ago, TheBruce said:

Oh, like the great western democracy the US?!

If you are not prepared to adhere to the law of the land, then be prepared to suffer the consequences. They knew what they were doing and their greed got them the jail. As they say, do the crime, do the time!

Where on earth did I say anything about criminals evading punishment once convicted of a crime?

My point was exclusively about the utter idiocy of Capital Punishment, and the fact that it can not be practiced by any State that wants to present itself as in any way superior to the criminals it is killing.

[SANTAN]

8 hours ago, virginton said:

 

[vikingTON]

8 hours ago, welshbairn said:

America has tried to do the same as the Soviets did, transform the lives of city dwellers into 20/21st century norms while leaving most of the country in the dark ages. The Soviets were failing even without western help to the Mujahedeen and other rebels. People who have rarely come into contact with health services or non religious education, especially for girls, aren't likely to be seduced by the offer, and are more likely to ally themselves with forces who aren't dropping bombs all over the place, and speak of keeping to the old traditions.

I think you'll find that the Soviets had a track record in both breaking up traditional models of patriarchy and rolling out healthcare and secular education to Islamic societies that the Western combination of cultural soft power/corporate looting/gubbins interventions would give its eye teeth for. 

[btb]

I see no mention of the two elephants in the room - Pakistan & Saudi Arabia.