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Kabul today is starting to look like Saigon in 1975, and the long-predicted return to power of the Taliban appears imminent. Former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai knows who is responsible for the catastrophe: no, not himself and his corrupt government, but his American patrons. Karzai said that “the US has failed. Instead of saying that they have helped Afghanistan stabilise, they leave, and the general leaving, is warning of a civil war. So that means they have failed but we Afghans have not.” Yes, of course. We were supposed to stay there until the lion lies down with the lamb and Nancy Pelosi votes Republican, to help Afghanistan stabilize. But aside from his bluster and self-aggrandizement, Karzai has a point: the American misadventure in Afghanistan has been mishandled from the beginning.
Karzai asserted that at the beginning of this two-decade-long excursion, the U.S. “did very good” in helping Afghanistan get on its feet. “The reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure, helping with education and other areas was very welcome and produced good results for the country.”
That was about all, however. “But subsequently,” he continued, “they began to rather than going and drying the sanctuaries outside of Afghanistan, in Pakistan, which is what they themselves reported about, they began bombing and hurting Afghan people and creating prisons in our own country. That led to where we are today.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
CogitoErgoSum says
The U.S. has no doubt also helped the Taliban become more effective fighters against the government that is now in power by training Afghani soldiers who soon will or have already switched sides to join the Taliban.
Keys says
Horrific times for many Afghan families. The Taliban is assassinating US trained Afghani pilots.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/562316-taliban-targeting-afghan-pilots-for
Keys says
OAN has a better article on these assassinations for anyone interested.
https://www.oann.com/special-report-afghan-pilots-assassinated-by-taliban-as-u-s-withdraws/
gravenimage says
Here’s the Real Reason for the Dire Situation in Afghanistan Today
……………
Afghanistan is almost 100% Muslim. “Stabalizing” such as society is of course completely impossible.
Keys says
+1
Kind of like making Hell a peaceful Paradise. A fool’s errand.
Bikinis not Burkas says
The real reason in one word!
ISLAM
gravenimage says
True, Keys and Bikinis not Burkas.
Don McKellar says
I don’t think Karzai has much to worry about. His Fraudulancy’s masters are going to scale things back up. That loud mouth peace-nick has been swindled out of office, and there’s a huge profit to be made off the American tax-payers, and military brass who need their promotions.
gravenimage says
I very much doubt that Karzai will stay in Afghanistan–he will decamp to the civilized west, and spend the rest of his life castigating the Infidels.
Infidel says
I hope that he undergoes the same fate that befell Abdul Haq, who was our first choice for a post Taliban leader: that the Taliban captures him and does what they like w/ him
gravenimage says
I don’t even want to see a whining creep like Karzai fall victim to Jihad murder. This would not actually be any kind of justice–it would just further embolden Jihad murderers.
Infidel says
While I don’t necessarily want Karzai to be assassinated, Najibullah style, I want even less him finding refuge in the west. If he has to get refuge in another country, let it be somewhere like Qatar or Turkey
gravenimage says
Agreed, Infidel–I don’t want to see this parasite in the west, either.
Infidel says
As K T McFarland noted this morning on Newsmax, we won the Afghan war in 2001 itself – by December, both Kabul and Kandahar had fallen, Osama had fled and Mullah Omar was on the run. We had won it then itself
That was the point we should have left. Or if chasing al Qaeda was so important, we should have taken out Pakistan. There was plenty of evidence that Pakistan was playing a double game even then: only a cretin like President Bush could have fallen for Musharraf’s assurances
Much as I criticize President Biden, since this is the one opportunity that I have to praise him, I’ll do it. He has reversed every other Trump policy that was good for America – stopping the Keystone Pipeline, ending the ANWR drilling and fracking, and so on. However, he hasn’t stopped the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he had everything to gain by doing so: win the unqualified support of the Neocons, like Bill Krystal, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Liz Cheney, Max Booth and so on. Yet, he let the withdrawal go ahead, and has set July 31st, rather than September 11th as the date, which is a relief, since the latter should continue to be observed for what it is
For those pooh baahs who were challenging Biden on the withdrawal, instead of saying that he had faith in the Afghan Army, which is a joke, he should have said that we’ve been there for 20 years, and that if after all that, they don’t have the will to fight the Taliban, then that’s their problem, not ours. If the Taliban is now getting possession of humvees and other advanced weaponry, that is on us for giving it to the Afghans in the first place
Here is what is being predicted: first, the Taliban will restore the same sort of rule that they did in 1996, and once that’s done, they’ll turn on Pakistan, since there’s Tehreek-e-Taliban that’s in revolt against Pakistan, and the Afghan Taliban will be happy to support them and try and conquer the Paki part of ‘Pashtunistan’. Let it happen. Like Hugh pointed out in the past, when muslims are at war w/ other muslims, they’re too busy to wage jihad against us
Rob says
‘He has reversed every other Trump policy that was good for America – stopping the Keystone Pipeline, ending the ANWR drilling and fracking, and so on. However, he hasn’t stopped the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he had everything to gain by doing so: win the unqualified support of the Neocons, like Bill Krystal, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Liz Cheney, Max Booth and so on’ .
Not to mention opening the Southern border. Trump’s plan was to maintain a small force to support the civil government. Biden and his puppeteers are so intent on destroying the Trump legacy that they will leave 000s of women who ventrured into the public square to endure the Taliban.
Infidel says
I don’t disagree: everything else Biden has done has been and is a disaster. However, I’m not gonna criticize him on this particular one: there, he’s undoing a Bush-Obama policy, not a Trump one. It’s not our job to babysit Afghan muslimahs. If the Afghans value the freedom we got them, then the Taliban would have a tough fight on their hands
The reason all that advanced weaponry is falling into their hands is that the Afghan ‘military’ doesn’t have the will to fight. In which case, it’s not our job to stay there forever
Kepha says
My guess is that a generation or two after the Taliban victory, people who really know Afghanistan will report that it has one of the highest rates of battered husbands in the world.
Uncle Kepha groaned to hear of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan. This misadventure depended on a logistical trail through Pakistan, which always was duplicitous, and was the real sponsor of Qaeda and Taliban. It is also a country that pathologically hates non-Muslims.
Further, Afghanistan has been, since the fall of the monarchy, a mere hole in the map. The Durrani state was allowed as a convenient buffer between the ambitions of imperial Russia and imperial Britain. But, any attempt to make it in to a real nation is likely to fail.
If it slips back into its tribal anarchy and becomes a future battleground for Iran and Pakistan, so be it. Or, with luck, China will be tempted to pacify it, and end up bleeding itself in a guerrilla war that will include Sharki Turkistan as well, and make China look utterly ugly to all as it commits genocide to make peace.
Infidel says
Kepha
Afghanistan was never a real nation any more than Iraq was. Yeah, Ahmad Shah Durrani/Abdali united it into a single empire, but really speaking, Afghan for a lot of people – particularly in the subcontinent – was synonymous w/ Pashtuns/Pathans. That group occupies just southern and eastern Afghanistan, as well as parts of Pakistan – cities like Kandahar, Jalalalalalabad (as Rush Limbaugh used to call it), Peshawar, Quetta, Khowst,… Historically, after the arrival of islam, it was a part of the Samanid (Iranian), Ghaznavid (Turkic), Ghorid (Tajik/Iranian), Khwarezmid (Turkic), Chagatai (Mongol), Timuride (Turkic), Mughal (Turkic), Afsharid (Iranian) and finally Durrani (Pashtun) empires
But in reality, as we all know, Pakistan and Afghanistan are as ill organized ethnically as Iraq is. Just like Iraq is sunni Arab, shi’a Arab and Kurd all forced into one, similarly Pakistan and Afghanistan split up Pashtunistan, and both countries have untenable ethnic coalitions. Sindis have nothing in common w/ Punjabis, unless one brings it under an Indian, as opposed to an islamic umbrella. And in Afghanistan, you have Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen all vying for pieces of that country
If we had to make that country normal, one solution might have been to hand over all Pashtun areas to Pakistan (Kandahar, Khowst, Jalalabad, parts of Kabul), Tajik areas north of Kabul to Tajikistan, and Herat and Ghowr as well as Hazara territory to Iran. Let each country handle it the way it likes, and that way, it wouldn’t have been our problem. But failing that, just leave them to their own devices and let them fight to the end
gravenimage says
Kepha wrote:
My guess is that a generation or two after the Taliban victory, people who really know Afghanistan will report that it has one of the highest rates of battered husbands in the world.
……………………
Actually, Islam sacralizes the abuse of women, including wife beating, not the beating of husbands. Of course, under Islam the weak are always targeted–so this might apply in some cases where husbands are elderly or disabled–otherwise, likely not.
And I know you have claimed before that breaking up Afghanistan and handing its parts to in most cases equally violent and Islamic societies would somehow have fixed everything in Afghanistan–I don’t think this would have much helped.
James Lincoln says
Infidel says,
I agree, December 2001 would have been a good time to have exited Afghanistan,
It is not possible to “nation-build” a country that is virtually 100% islamic…
Infidel says
Yeah, and that was also where it could have been handed over to a pre-Erdogan Turkey and other muslim states not on Afghanistan’s periphery or who weren’t involved w/ al Qaeda – to manage: countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Libya, Turkey (then pre-Erdogan), Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan
mortimer says
The Afghan people support Sharia law to an absolutely fanatical level. That is the source of the problem.
If they did not believe that ‘Sharia is the answer’, Afghanistan could embrace modernity. They will remain in the 7th century unless a majority of the country concludes that Islam is of human origin.
Clifford Fodor says
Afghanistan was a straw man that the US could blame for the 9/11 attacks instead of where it should have been placed–Saudi Arabia. We should have conquered Saudi Arabia and hold it until the Lord Jesus appears in the clouds at His Second Coming. We should have done what Ann Coulter told us to do–to conquer their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. Instead, we blamed the 9/11 attacks all on some “fanatic” who claimed to know Islam, but who misinterpreted it. We keep insisting that Islam is a peaceful religion. We even allowed Islam to be written in the constitutions of Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Iraq after disposing of Saddam Hussein. Even more stupid, we brought and are bringing in more and more Muslims into the USA so that they can multiply and eventually destroy us..
Infidel says
Aside from Saudi Arabia, the other countries that should have been looked at very closely were Pakistan, Kuwait, Emirates and Qatar. After all, one reason one of the pre-9/11 attempts on Osama was pulled was that he was out hunting w/ a Qatari sheikh. Also, it was inane of the US to believe Pakistan’s claims to be an ally of theirs against al Qaeda
I also agree w/ you that we have no business asking any other country to rewrite their constitution, especially when we’ve allowed them to declare them islamic ones. In case of Kuwait, though, they never rewrote their constitution: they just got their country back for free, and then the Bushes set about making Israel pay for the support Arabs gave Saddam by forcing on them the Oslo Accords
We need to focus on China now, so the sooner we withdraw everybody from every muslim land and expel all their people from ours, the better. China is now more powerful than ever, and look like they’d like to overrun Taiwan while Biden is in office
gravenimage says
Afghanistan did indeed give Osama bin Laden sanctuary, and gave him a base to plot Jihad terror against America on 9/11. That statement of fact does not mean that the vicious Saudis were not involved. The Saudis are *not* our allies. There was no reason for us to stay in Afghanistan.
And the idea the the US invaded Kuwait is mistaken.