US withdrawal from Afghanistan - your thoughts?

[A Canadian Cat]

It's just that sometime we think we have changed our ways for so long, while in reality I think it's not that far away (both figuratively and literally).

Yep, well said. Heck in Canada women only gained the right to vote in 1916 in one province (https://cfc-swc.gc.ca/commemoration/cent/index-en.html) and finally in 1919 federally (https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/biography-people/Pages/voting-women.aspx) and women were only fully recognized as persons under the law in 1929 (https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1929-women-become-persons). That is not very long ago at all.

I suspect that most would also agree that the fact that people in other parts of the world were still doing bad stuff only a few hundred years ago doesn't mean we should just ignore it now either. Not that we have to or should go invading everywhere that doesn't hoping to fix them. We can clearly see, again, that this is more wishful thinking than anything else.

 

[Sgt Joch]

Still too early to guess what the Taliban will do. They will impose Islamic law, that much is clear, but that has been the trend in the Muslim world for decades now. You have the same thing in many countries including nominal "Allies" like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iraq.

We hold the western liberal democratic model as the ideal, but that model applies in relatively few countries. Most countries in the world have repressive, authoritarian regimes with limited political, economic, social and religious rights. The West does not have the resources to impose its values on the ROW. As we saw in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, "nation building" is an incredible hard exercise, so the West has to pick and choose its fights carefully.

Now if the Taliban goes into the crazy ISIS zone and starts killing ethnic/religious minorities, the world may have to react, but it should not be a U.S. only problem/responsibility. It should be a collective decision/responsibility of the international community.

 

[Rico]

Interesting discussion on Afghanistan

 

[Bulletpoint]

Now if the Taliban goes into the crazy ISIS zone and starts killing ethnic/religious minorities, the world may have to react, but it should not be a U.S. only problem/responsibility.

I hope not, but I actually think that if Taliban wants to commit atrocities, they have a window of opportunity now. I don't see any other country rushing into Afghanistan to stop it in the foreseeable future.

The only thing that would provoke a response is if they started attacking into neighbouring countries. Can't imagine them doing that though. I don't think they have an expansionist agenda.

 

[Lethaface]

Still too early to guess what the Taliban will do. They will impose Islamic law, that much is clear, but that has been the trend in the Muslim world for decades now. You have the same thing in many countries including nominal "Allies" like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iraq.

We hold the western liberal democratic model as the ideal, but that model applies in relatively few countries. Most countries in the world have repressive, authoritarian regimes with limited political, economic, social and religious rights. The West does not have the resources to impose its values on the ROW. As we saw in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, "nation building" is an incredible hard exercise, so the West has to pick and choose its fights carefully.

Now if the Taliban goes into the crazy ISIS zone and starts killing ethnic/religious minorities, the world may have to react, but it should not be a U.S. only problem/responsibility. It should be a collective decision/responsibility of the international community.

There is also no such thing as 'the' sharia law, almost all of it is up to local interpretation and often is more regional culture than a 'global' thing. For example the Burka is an Afghan 'thing' while female genital mutilation is an east African 'thing'. Not unlike how different Christian group interpret / invent rules how they are supposed to live, perhaps even more diverse.
Another thing is that I don't think that the western model is the 'goto' for other countries, not every country is ready for democratic rule in the way we do it. Not that the way we do it is universal or without flaws. So even if we would have the resources to impose our values upon others, that imo isn't the way to go forward.

And I agree that when groups start to behave like IS, 'big booms from the sky shall fall upon thee, and he saw that it was good'.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Interesting discussion on Afghanistan

Thanks for sharing this. Definitely worth watching.

One thing I was wondering about was the prediction that this will mean at least another decade of "war on terror". I think that might not necessarily be true. While I'm sure jihadists have gained a huge morale boost, the Taliban jihad was local - the goal was to kick out the foreigners from Afghanistan. While the ISIS jihad was global in scope.

Also, I think the whole islamist movement is not something that has grown in a vacuum, but that has been actively promoted and supported by various nations for their own aims. For example, I'm pretty sure Pakistan is content now that Afghanistan is now once again within their sphere of influence. So I don't think they are interested in any more dramatic developments there.

I am guessing the future of Afghanistan could look something like Iran immediately after the islamic revolution. A semi-pariah state, oppressive but starting to function more like a state than a guerilla movement... but very hampered by cronies being placed in positions of power and authority.

 

[Lethaface]

Interesting discussion on Afghanistan

Good video. My brother told me about an interview he saw (in dutch) which reached similar conclusions about the way the (lack of) exit strategy has actually caused the collapse of the Afghan Army. Hadn't checked that one yet, but this one seems interesting 20min in. Thanks!

 

[Lethaface]

Thanks for sharing this. Definitely worth watching.

One thing I was wondering about was the prediction that this will mean at least another decade of "war on terror". I think that might not necessarily be true. While I'm sure jihadists have gained a huge morale boost, the Taliban jihad was local - the goal was to kick out the foreigners from Afghanistan. While the ISIS jihad was global in scope.

Also, I think the whole islamist movement is not something that has grown in a vacuum, but that has been actively promoted and supported by various nations for their own aims. For example, I'm pretty sure Pakistan is content now that Afghanistan is now once again within their sphere of influence. So I don't think they are interested in any more dramatic developments there.

I am guessing the future of Afghanistan could look something like Iran immediately after the islamic revolution. A semi-pariah state, oppressive but starting to function more like a state than a guerilla movement... but very hampered by cronies being placed in positions of power and authority.

That depends on what you define as the "war on terror". Like the war on drugs, I personally think that if it produced any results it is more fertile soil for terrorism or drug trading. Anyway there is a good documentary out there about drone strikes, involving JSOC and the drone program under Obama, from about 3-8 years ago. The gist of the documentary was that they had created a special operations command directly under the control of the white house which was very good at 'kill or capture', using various methods. From SF squads getting to terrorist/insurgent VIPs in Iraq and drone strikes working off the 'kill list', a list of a couple of thousands of individuals to be assassinated without any form of trial whatsoever, let alone a state of war with the country the individual was residing (and the military actions are conducted). They had created a hammer in search of nails was what a person involved in it described it (anonymous). There have been a lot of drone strikes since then, a lot of them in countries were the US is not at war with. Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan are some of those. Something which did caught my attention were the 'signature strikes', which basically mean that GSM contacts that are often near to a known/suspected GSM contact, is also ripe for hellfiring. In practice this often meant that the mother/garage/taxi drivers family of the suspect would get killed. Creating more potential terrorists.

Since then things haven't really improved imo. Unfortunately.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Some backgrounds. I think the answer is a bit more complex than a yes or no, but definitely there are some shared interests and connections.

The ISI and Terrorism: Behind the Accusations

Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, faces persistent accusations of links to terrorism, despite repeated denials.

www.cfr.org

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/117472/DP%2018.pdf

Ok, so I finally had time to read this. Basically, it says there are many people who suspect or assume that Pakistan has close ties to the Taliban, and that it's likely that either this is a result of a schizophrenic system where the army and the intelligence agencies are running two different and conflicting foreign policies - or that Pakistan intentionally does counterterrorism with the army to promote ties to the US, while at the same time supporting the same terrorists with the ISI in order to hedge their bets in case NATO pulls out of Afghanistan, which is what happened. I think the latter is the case, and that they are much more involved in supporting the Taliban than they let on.

 

[Lethaface]

Ok, so I finally had time to read this. Basically, it says there are many people who suspect or assume that Pakistan has close ties to the Taliban, and that it's likely that either this is a result of a schizophrenic system where the army and the intelligence agencies are running two different and conflicting foreign policies - or that Pakistan intentionally does counterterrorism with the army to promote ties to the US, while at the same time supporting the same terrorists with the ISI in order to hedge their bets in case NATO pulls out of Afghanistan, which is what happened. I think the latter is the case, and that they are much more involved in supporting the Taliban than they let on.

You're analysis is probably as good as anyone's without a serious devotion/professional to the subject. Years ago I was kneedeep reading and watching geopolitics and intelligence stuff from every angle I could find.

Isi was said to be rather active on various fronts in the past, think like CIA but than with Pakistani interests in a volatile region.

 

[Lethaface]

And obviously intelligence from every nation that thinks that it matters in the world was / is now in Afghanistan (and Ukraine, Iraq, etc). Which does make the 'unexpected' advance by the Taliban more stinky.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Isi was said to be rather active on various fronts in the past, think like CIA but than with Pakistani interests in a volatile region.

I think one of the "blind spots" in western countries is that we tend to assume that non-western countries remain largely passive and don't have any plots or schemes of their own. The coverage of Afghanistan has mostly focused on Taliban VS USA and their allies. These "magical cavemen" that can just keeep fighting no matter what we throw at them. As if Pakistanis, Iranians, etc. are just spending their time smoking the water pipe while there's a war going on in their back yard.

 

[Lethaface]

I think one of the "blind spots" in western countries is that we tend to assume that non-western countries remain largely passive and don't have any plots or schemes of their own. The coverage of Afghanistan has mostly focused on Taliban VS USA and their allies. These "magical cavemen" that can just keeep fighting no matter what we throw at them. As if Pakistanis, Iranians, etc. are just spending their time smoking the water pipe while there's a war going on in their back yard.

To be fair, 'our' intelligence services sure don't have those blind spots, although often somehow more involved as well ;-). Politics and average voters are a different matter though.

 

[Bulletpoint]

To be fair, 'our' intelligence services sure don't have those blind spots, although often somehow more involved as well ;-). Politics and average voters are a different matter though.

The Afghanistan pullout actually makes me start to question that. It seems to me that even Biden seriously believed that the Afghan government would be able to keep going for some years. Then maybe it would collapse later, who knows, but then it wouldn't be the massive PR disaster for him that this has become.

I think if he knew the Taliban would take over immediately, he wouldn't have gone ahead. It's simply not looking good to anyone in the USA or the rest of the world. Even in the US, it's not a typical party politics issue where his power base approves and the opposition disapproves by default. It's not like when Trump left the Paris treaty. Both republicans and democrats seem to be appalled by this pullout, from what I can read both online and here in this thread.

 

[Lethaface]

The Afghanistan pullout actually makes me start to question that. It seems to me that even Biden seriously believed that the Afghan government would be able to keep going for some years. Then maybe it would collapse later, who knows, but then it wouldn't be the massive PR disaster for him that this has become.

I think if he knew the Taliban would take over immediately, he wouldn't have gone ahead. It's simply not looking good to anyone in the USA or the rest of the world. Even in the US, it's not a typical party politics issue where his power base approves and the opposition disapproves by default. It's not like when Trump left the Paris treaty. Both republicans and democrats seem to be appalled by this pullout, from what I can read both online and here in this thread.

Well, there could be several issues in getting info from intelligence up the chain, where it might be interpreted differently. Also sometimes particular information isn't deemed in the interest of parties to be made public. Etc etc.
At least France was already evacuating people in April.

 

[MOS:96B2P]

From the BBC:

It said the militants have been going door-to-door to find targets and threaten their family members.
The hardline Islamist group has tried to reassure Afghans since seizing power, promising there would be "no revenge".
But there are growing fears of a gap between what they say and what they do.

 

[Bulletpoint]

From the BBC:

It said the militants have been going door-to-door to find targets and threaten their family members.
The hardline Islamist group has tried to reassure Afghans since seizing power, promising there would be "no revenge".
But there are growing fears of a gap between what they say and what they do.

And they know exactly who they are going for.

Afghanistan: Will fingerprint data point Taliban to targets?

Campaigners worry fingerprint and iris scan data could by used by the Taliban to identify individuals.

www.bbc.com

 

[Bulletpoint]

If I had to look at the bright side for a moment, I would say that maybe this is a chance for democracy to start to sprout from the bottom up instead of being imposed from the top down.

Many people in Afghanistan are so young that they never knew what it's like to live under Taliban rule. While many are still poor, they grew up in a society that was much more open and connected to the outside world than the people during the previous Taliban years. They are also way better educated than previously.

They might start to get nostalgic about the last 20 years, because now the Taliban are in charge, they are also responsible for everything wrong in Afghanistan. Hopefully, that will lead to some kind of movement towards real change. Not an easy thing, but at least it would then be a desire that comes from the people themselves. Home-grown democracy is the only thing that works.

 

[Lethaface]

Let's hope!

 

[Bulletpoint]