I also highly doubt kids in Afghan are dealing in AK's for £300. There's no way they'll sell for that much between locals and militias.
Sounds like the Taliban are already in Kabul, it was supposed to take them two/three months to advance that far in previous reports, it's taken them just a few days, since that report.
In a nutshell... They have a puppet President who is largely despised by the vast majority of all the different natives/tribes/factions because he can't relate to them or the majority of Afghan people. He spent about the first 4 years of his life in Afghanistan then fcked off abroad and only returned after the Americans invaded in 2001 and since then has been funded and backed to eventually become its leader. The government is pretty much an autocratic one with about 3 people trying to rule over the whole country and all the different factions without delegating any power. To top that off he's seen as an outsider for reasons mentioned earlier. It's a bit strange that in 20 years they've not managed to establish any homegrown people to take the top job? Secondly, there's far too much hype about the Taliban being on some sort of crusade. If f you listen to most of the British and American top military brass who've actually served over there, it's a tribal system and the Taliban are also an integral part of that, and the simplest and most effective way to deal with them is pay them off. All comes down to money in the end. As long as they were paying them off the tribes and Taliban were happy and left them and the town folk alone. But when they aren't it's amazing how many of these tribes folk suddenly come under the umbrella of Taliban lol. Over the past week I've heard this whole argument about troops being pulled out in the media in such a binary way, i.e. we should never have got involved and should leave well alone OR we shouldn't leave and continue to fight the Taliban. I think the reason we've ultimately failed is because that's the mentality we've approached it with all along. Same in Iraq "Mission Accomplished". You take over the country and then totally alienate the main ruling force in that country but think you'll sort out all the problems by building a few schools for girls ffs. What the Allies should have done is engaged with the Taliban at their level not ours. Instead of trying to get them to become part of a liberal democracy in one foul swoop by trying to impose it on them, why not educate them to how they could adopt their fundamentalist approach in government as less barbaric countries have. It would be a stepping stone in getting them to shift their ideology as well as opening their eyes to the wider world and how other Islamic states do their thing. It may not be our way but it would be a fck of a lot better than the prehistoric cocoon they live in now and which reinforces their fcked up beliefs. That's pretty much why we're seeing what we're seeing in Afghanistan and it's the same as what's gone on there for hundreds of years with anyone who's tried to impose themselves on that place. OK not so much in a nutshell
They've done a deal for a non-violent takeover. The President has quit and the Taliban are the government now. They're claiming that it's a temporary measure until they can establish something that includes all Afghans.
Without wanting to sound crass ,it sounds like way the Emperor takes over in Star Wars! Bloody hell, tragic stuff. I read earlier he's left the country?
Yeah, he buggered off to Tajikistan. It's right next door and pretty close to Kabul. Might've gone further if he felt particularly threatened, I'd have thought.
Must admit, I'm a bit fed up listening to the media constant take on this, then Labour jumping on the bandwagon. It's not our problem, it was never our problem, until Blair and Bush opened the gates to hell. My worry is not the Afghans today, but the future population of our own country, the UK, having to deal with the knock on affect of this in decades to come. Our children and our children's children. Some people have only known the violence of war, some people hold deep grudges against the British and Americans, some people have extreme views, very different from ours. We need to stop the narratives that translators helped us, NO, we helped them. The Afghan's own president has done a runner, yup, got up and fled the country. Yet they want us the British to fight their fight, after 39 million Afghans just rolled over. It should have taken two to three months for the Taliban to get to Kabul, they walked in within days! Two decades we spent training them. Well if that's what they want, good luck to them. I can't condone fighting for a man that will not fight for himself. We are only a country of 70 million people, we don't have the ability or the money to be protector of the world. Once America withdraw, we have no choice but to do the same.
I would like to thank Blair for starting down this road of a ****show. Billions spent and many lives lost getting involved when we could have focused that effort on prevention of terrorism at home. Just managed to radicalise many against the west.
I agree to a large extent, we can't hold their hand forever , but I also don't blame them either. You're not going to change centuries of feudal, tribal existence in 20 years. And tbh we never really addressed it anyway. Afghanistan is made up of a number of different powerful factions with long standing grievances. We just picked the side we liked and backed them - fck the rest. Then when we leave we expect all of them to come together to resist the Taliban - nah aint happening.
And it just so happened to coincide with a major gas supply being discovered under the desert and a pipeline proposal. Go figure!
I honestly don't know Diego. Maybe job done and therefore we don't need to be there anymore? Or the money in vs money out aint worth it anymore? Fck knows tbh.
Afghanistan is three times bigger than our little island. Maybe we can all move over there, be easier than trying to squeeze 39 million Afghans in to our tiny little space.
