Remember when the Afghan people had a phenomenally well equipped and well trained army, and then they just gave up inside a week because things were “hard”?
Like if you don’t give a shit…no one is going to give a harder shit about you than you will.
I wonder if it was “hard” or “I want the Taliban to take over.” There’s probably a decent amount of people in that area that can fundamentally agree with the Taliban. it’s a religious and oppression group. If you’re ideologically aligned with the Taliban, and male, you’re probably either as good or better of under them.
Not saying this is everything but I imagine there’s at least some people who are ok with the new government, mostly because they don’t care about others over their own self.
The ANA never had very good moral, just read the experiences of US troops with them.
I’d have more sympathy for the people of Afghanistan if they had actually fought back against the Taliban.
People say that America lost in Afghanistan, but we were basically the only thing propping up democracy. The people themselves made no effort.
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Nah, they didn’t make an effort. The Taliban was welcomed when they rolled in. The US military expected there would be resistance, but the Taliban had pretty much captured everything before we were even gone.
Outside of Kabul it seemed the average rural person felt that they had to choose between a temporary US occupation supporting an uninterested government vs the Taliban who were all around them on a daily basis and would take over the second the US left. They did the safe thing and sided with the Taliban.
Yeah agree. Like what does the world need to do for your country internal problem.
IDK exactly what the “world” can do here. The Taliban is the legit government of Afghanistan now (well, maybe legit should be in quotes). Do people want another war to take out the Taliban? That didn’t go so well the first time. And there are already sanctions on the Taliban’s government but other countries are still willing to trade with them.
I don’t see any international fix working here. There needs to be internal change. Whether that’s reform, coup, or whatever.
I hate it when you see the media (e.g. the BBC) going on about the latest awful government somewhere or some nation falling apart. The implication of course is they want someone to march in and save it, of course this means using force because the people there who are the problem aren’t going to leave willingly. So then you end up with a war and all the things that go with war (our guys dying, civilians get killed, accidents, etc) and then the media comes back and says how awful this war is, how civilians are getting killed, how things aren’t much better, etc.
We spent twenty years fighting their battles for them, $2.3 trillion spent helping build up their infrastructure, supplying them with weapons and training, and trying to help them build a legitimate democratic government. After all our efforts, expenses, and American lives lost, it took the Taliban just ten days to retake the entire country. Freedom can’t be given it has to be won, and frankly they weren’t willing to fight for theirs… and I say this as a disabled combat veteran who lost dozens of friends to this conflict either in combat or to their own hands once they returned home. What a waste.
To be fair Russia, the UK and the US also took turns totaly destroying the country for the better part of the last century. We can’t give them their freedom back on a plate but we shouldn’t forget that we’re also the ones that took it away. That money and those lives weren’t some kind of gift they were an attempt to undo the collective damage we’ve done. Well the American/British money and lives, pretty sure Russia didn’t give a crap.
You can go back to Alexander the Great. Mountainous regions have always been notoriously hard to control with other regions like the Caucasus and the Balkans as examples. They tend to be fragmented and loosely connected.
Wow I’m american and this is some american kool aide if I’ve ever seen it. The Taliban is evil but the framing of the invasion and occupation as some noble humanitarian effort is like newsmax propaganda.
Some good things did happen. More girls went to schools. You can look up data and see the infant mortality rate plummet.
We didn’t go over there for humanitarian reasons, and our true goal wasn’t noble – but there was still good that came of it. Enough good for them to ask us why we’ve forgotten about them. And I don’t blame them – but I also can’t blame us.
I agree, the hard truth is it’s on them. The people of Afghanistan collectively lacked the will to fight for their freedom. It’s a stark contrast with places like Ukraine.
We built schools and got girls into the schools. The first thing the Taliban did was close all of those schools.
Who’s We, why We went there in the first place and on what grounds?
We went there because the Taliban didn’t want to kick Al Qaeda out and 9-11 had just happened.
O fuck off. You invaded them and then left. 2.3 trillion went to pay your military and contractors.
“You should’ve extended the war by a few more decades!”
There was an attempt at nation building and it didn’t go well. Afghanistan and the Middle East is a culturally complicated place, it’s mostly tribes and smaller villages with a lot of history. It’s hard to point fingers at the US for leaving when a decent chunk of the country either didn’t care, or didn’t want them there anymore.
I mean, literally any other country in the world is welcome to step in and fix it. Imagine the bragging rights at the next UN summit. “We fixed Afghanistan!” No? No takers? Alright.
As cynical as a take as that is, yeah national building hard espically out there. People will resist change, you have very little infrastructure to work with, and a poor little esucation population
The proper noun Middle East needs work.
Thank you
The second part sounds a bit like a copout. They have done military interventions in a lot of different regions. The US has ransacked a growing number of countries just to get rid of a small amount of “baddies”.
You don’t get to destroy shit and leave. If you play world police, start doing the whole job, not parts of it. And I’m totally fine with US starting less interventions because they don’t wanna clean up after themselves. Probably a net positive given the history in the middle east.
I agree with you, but also… they absolutely did not want us there. America isn’t trying to colonize.
The people in power are corrupt, the world around. Religious states, doubly so.
We can’t even control the zealots rising up in our own country.
You aren’t forgotten. US and allies accepted the decision that was made within a week of us leaving. The country, as a whole, collectively chose the easy route of Taliban rule. That decision has consequences.
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They’re not saying the withdrawal was quick, they’re saying the takeover after the withdrawal was quick. Which it was, Pentagon officials said it was faster than all their estimates.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/08/16/how-afghanistan-fell-to-the-taliban-so-quickly.html
The gov had poor control over the countryside and the Taliban had infiltrated everywhere and was just laying in wait. The irony is they are now fighting another, even more extreme Islamic group, Al Qaeda.
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Exclude the actual government of the country from negotiations, and then wonder why they stand by and watch when you pull out, and your enemy storms the gates…
The feeling there was…
- The gov didn’t care about anyone outside of Kabul.
- They knew the US wouldn’t be there forever and the ANA had shitty moral. The Taliban however would be there when the US left and people didn’t want to be targeted for revenge killings, etc.
Can’t believe the victim blaming going on in this thread. What the fuck? You people can’t understand that ordinary people didn’t want to rise up and risk their lives? They weren’t asking for help from citizens of other countries like them, they were asking for help from other militaries since their own failed them. Yet, the people are to blame? How is that a popular opinion? The complete lack of empathy from the privileged is alarming.
It’s kind of similar to Russia right now; in order for the country to change - and it NEEDS to change - ordinary people would need to take drastic action. The USA in Afghanistan kind of demonstrates just how incredibly hard it is for even an ultra-powerful external force to do that.
Heck, look at formerly-Nazi Germany. It’s now a stupendous place to live, but look at what needed to get it there. In addition to multiple countries toppling the regime, they needed Germans to be active about their beliefs in the future of their nation, to the point they were willing to literally dismantle a wall.
I don’t claim to be able to give them a guidebook, but I definitely think when the Taliban does fall, it would have to come at least from heavy, confrontational, violent rejection of them from the locals.
I think this is a situation where there just aren’t good answers. I prefer to draw a distinction between the politicians and cowards who handed the keys to the Taliban, vs the women and men and everyday people who opposed the Taliban.
It’s unfair and gross to blame them. It’s also unfair though for them to blame us. We spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. American blood watered the soil, but we saw beautiful flowers bloom. Women were uplifted. The infant mortality rate plummeted. People voted for their leaders.
What more could we do, at this point? I’d like to think that if we had armed more of the uplifted people, they would’ve maintained their government and continued to fight the Taliban. I tell myself that partially though because if that isn’t true, then there truly was nothing different we could’ve done or do now. We’d have to annex territory into a state, maybe.
Other militaries DID go in and pushed out the Taliban and you know what happened? The people, especially in the rural areas, were indifferent at best and frequently hostile. They didn’t ask for anyone to “help them”, even if they politely accepted it but they still saw them as outsiders vs the Taliban who were at least from there. They also knew the US and others weren’t going to be there forever and the day would eventually come when they’d leave and then what? The Taliban would be there to fill the void. The moral in the ANA was crap so they weren’t going to stop them. So the people kept on the best terms with both sides best they could and tried not to piss off the Taliban so they wouldn’t take revenge when they returned.
Yeah I hate that and am surprised to see that on lemmy
Reading those comments gives feelings of wtf
So do you suggest they give up their sovereignty and become a territory of a neighbouring country?
The Taliban is allied with China so it won’t be them, if it’s India then China and Pakistan will see it as justification. Then the next closest neighbour would be the US but the people aren’t willing. And if you throw out the Taliban it’s not going to solve anything because they will just forever war
When externals were (unsuccesfully) trying to change something in the country, it was a total bust. I read in these comments that intentions were not pure from America, and I can imagine that. I also saw interviews with US military personal after they came back from Afghanistan, who seemed to genuinely want to help, but had to deal with a lot of corruption, low education, internal theft and child abuse (Bachi Bazi). Now no one is helping, and even though I’d like for the local population to live free lives, I don’t even know how one would start to help. The Taliban will just hide and guerilla it’s way back after occupation has dissapated. It seems like a real life Kobayashi Maru situation. No winners, only losers here :(
It reminds me, I read about veterans who went to volunteer and fight for Ukraine because they wanted to help, and they felt like they hadn’t in Afghanistan.
The world spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to help you. It didn’t take.
Yep didn’t we remove their horrid government, hold elections, try to support a more liberal government through multiple decades in the longest war the US has ever engaged in?
And wasn’t that a massive overreach of our role in the first place?
I feel for these women but this headline can go get fucked.
Yeah, those helpful drones.
Oh, don’t act like that’s all the last 20 years was.
We spent two decades trying to train up their army with direct hands on mentorship and equipment, they rolled over and surrendered immediately.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the people overthrow their religious fascist government.
The United States Department of Defense lists 2,462 servicemembers as having died in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Of these, 1,926 were due to hostile action and 536 non-hostile.
United States military casualties in the War in Afghanistan - Wikipedia
On behalf of all the veterans of this conflict, fuck you.
Those needless military casualties are equally on the hands of our elite and their shares in arms companies.
And think of the Afghan people themselves. They don’t know peace because of us.
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You got me! I’m the head of Exxon, and Raytheon, I also manufacture opioids on the side. I’m all about empire.
Fuck the 250,000 Afghanis that died.
No you’re just a thoughtless clod who said something stupid on the internet. Try not to enjoy being called out on it.
Keep pretending Captain Amerika was saving the Afghans.
Whatever, fool, I protested that war in the streets.
Decent point. But then why send them back?
Afghanistan is full of a bunch of small tribes. They all hate each other and refuse to work together. Just go Google “dancing boy parties Afghanistan” you will quickly lose any sympathy for the people and culture. The US had to turn a blind eye to pedophile parties, which are a time honored tradition, in order to keep the peace.
The forces the US trained and equipped were basically the dregs of society that would be in prison in most countries. They would steal and sell shit to the Taliban. Claiming to have driven many miles on patrol to syphon and sell the gas was common practice. They sold the guns and trucks. There is no helping this country. It’s going to be a shit show until they get past their tribal hatred and work together.
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Fuck me for wanting one as a trans person, amirite?
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Damn, a lot of “Fuck Afghanistan, hoo rah America is great” kinda vibes in here :-/ I left Reddit to get away from the constant USA Defaultsm nonsense…
Yes, let’s ignore the most important issue - people are suffering and as decent humans we have a duty to them, when we can instead use it as an excuse to point out how much better Americans are at being a country, etc etc :-(
Honestly fuck that? USA, it’s intentions mixed as they were, at least tried to help - and that’s a country that already had experience in influencing growth and change in other countries. I can’t really see other options for them.
Yeah, they are in a bad place but please let’s not forget that they actually worked to be in that place. So screw that, my heart goes to them but they’re lost case for now, until they are ready to fight for themselves.
My impression of reddit was the opposite. Lots of people who have never set foot outside of their town saying America was the worst place on earth.
How can most people help and as a follow up how can we help them and not the Taliban
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Does anyone have stats on Afghanistan’s opinions on America’s occupation right before we left? I imagine most of them wanted America to leave…
Though I’m now curious what their TRUE opinion was of the Taliban, because I see people wanting Communism back in Russia, I imagine people wanted the Taliban back instead of the Americans.
I’m sure at least 50 percent of them are like “Fuck no” (women), but when that group isn’t a huge part of the people guarding the country, I wonder if this was inevitable. Even if we somehow destroyed the entire Taliban, there would be another fundamental Islamic group who wanted to take over.
I think they looked at the Taliban as a pragmatic choice and a familiar force. They also saw the US leaving as at least an end to years of war and a return to something resembling normalcy.
I’m not surprised.
Hell I’m pretty sure people are forgetting Ukraine is at war. This is why I hated the “They’re winning” “Russia is retreating” rhetoric. Because wars take a long time and a lot of people will die in them. People are cheering something they have no part in but by saying “Ukraine is winning” I think many of them also add “And now we can stop focusing on them”.
Part of it is the media diverting attention or focusing on what they want people to focus on (watch how coverage of different shootings are covered. If it’s a white guy with a death toll, it’s covered far more than if it’s a woman, a non-minority, or a low death toll. People will defend that by “It’s focusing on the higher death toll” But doesn’t focus on the coverage changes based on race, gender, or if it’s a gang/drug related shooting.
Part of this is click bait but I think part of it too is a narrative that’s formed. Which is why school shootings are covered more than random alleys and such. But the reason why isn’t the problem, it’s more how the media shapes the national narrative due to what they decide to focus on.
The other part is people have enough going on in their life that they can’t think of every little thing going on in the world, but since the news is covering this, I guess we’ll focus a bit on Afghanistan for a bit again.
