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Kurshok

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1 minute ago, Kurshok said:

I think we should regroup our troops into where the resistance against the Taliban currently resides and try a pushback.

It really doesn't look like there is any resistance against the Taliban.

There is plenty of resistance against outsiders bombing wedding ceremonies though...

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2 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

It really doesn't look like there is any resistance against the Taliban.

There is plenty of resistance against outsiders bombing wedding ceremonies though...

There's a resistance group that's holding off the Taliban currently in one of the cities. I'll go search up where again.

Edit: Ahmad Mahmoud is their leader, in the mountains of Panjshir.

Edited by Kurshok
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21 hours ago, Kurshok said:

There's a resistance group that's holding off the Taliban currently in one of the cities. I'll go search up where again.

Edit: Ahmad Mahmoud is their leader, in the mountains of Panjshir.

A suicide bomber of the "Islamic State" killed 100+ people at Kabul airport.
So if you really like that war to go on longer, you could also support them.

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4 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

A suicide bomber of the "Islamic State" killed 100+ people at Kabul airport.
So if you really like that war to go on longer, you could also support them.

Why the hell would I support ISIS if I hate the Taliban? I hate theocracy. And it's not about making the war go on longer, although I don't mind if that happens so long as freedom is maintained for the Afghanistani people and the current terror we see with young war brides being taken and schools being shut down is stopped.

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4 hours ago, Kurshok said:

And it's not about making the war go on longer, although I don't mind if that happens so long as freedom is maintained for the Afghanistani people and the current terror we see with young war brides being taken and schools being shut down is stopped.

There is only one example where war actually brought freedom - and that was against the highly hierachical and centralized Nazis which started WW2 to conquer Europe.

Since then, each try on bringing freedom with bombs failed epicly to the point that not even the imperium believes in bringing freedom with bombs anymore.

ISIS exists, because we systematically bombed away any structure of power that would have prevented that from happening.
And getting new suicide bomber recruits is dead easy if you search for them in a region where everyone knows someone who lost a family member by drone strike.

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46 minutes ago, Abusimplea said:

There is only one example where war actually brought freedom - and that was against the highly hierachical and centralized Nazis which started WW2 to conquer Europe.

Since then, each try on bringing freedom with bombs failed epicly to the point that not even the imperium believes in bringing freedom with bombs anymore.

ISIS exists, because we systematically bombed away any structure of power that would have prevented that from happening.
And getting new suicide bomber recruits is dead easy if you search for them in a region where everyone knows someone who lost a family member by drone strike.

I disagree. The American Revolution brought freedom to the colonies. Then the Civil War brought freedom to the slaves.

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The problem with every country in the world, from the wealthiest and most developed to the poorest and most "backwards" (least developed) is that unless the people of that country want to improve things themselves, you cannot force them to improve it.

This isn't to say no aid or advice should be offered to those countries. Quite the opposite.

In Afghanistan, aside from a minority of better educated and more willing people, most people did not care about establishing any sort of true national unity or thinking of their country as a common, mutual project. This extends to the people that were in power before the recent Taliban coup d'état. It was more of a coup, since they didn't have to do much fighting, the army and local officials surrendered themselves, they had all cut deals about it beforehand. Well, the government in power until recently was immeasurably better in terms of human rights than the Taliban, but it was also catastrophically corrupt and apparently had little to no interest in not being corrupt. This cost them the long-term trust of local and regional officials and citizens, while at the same time, those local officials and citizens also had a prejudice against trusting the central government. If you have such absurd levels of distrust between the government and citizens, and it goes both ways, the country has a real inherent problem. And its long-held tribalist mentalities don't help with that at all, especially when they're so ingrained. 

Saying "the people there deserve the Taliban" is no more correct or reasonable than saying "they deserve a corrupt and incompetent government".

They deserve neither. They deserve to have a functioning government that would avoid corruption and try to improve the country.

However, if the way of doing things in Afghanistan has almost always been various types of cronyism, loyalty to local areas, tribes and your cronies, and a general lack of care for your fellow citizens and what happens to the country as a whole, then we can't be surprised that the running of Afghanistan has been incredibly corrupt and cronyist. Even if you stopped all forms of foreign aid, the cronyism would continue.

You could pour billions into education, healthcare, economic and military aid, but all of those billions will go down the drain or end up in the wrong hands (corrupt local officials, criminals, even outright terrorists) if you put no measures in place whatsoever to discourage corruption and teach people why corruption is ultimately bad and detrimental to any society and country. However, for all our willingness to help a less developed country, we can't do this process for them. They'll have to achieve that process themselves. Is it easy ? Well, of course it isn't. But who else can do it entirely for them ? No one. We can advise, we can provide know-how, but it's them who have to put up the effort. And you can't start making an effort unless you want to take up that effort in the first place. I don't think that Afghanistan or any country is unsuited to democracy. All of them are. But the people first need to understand what it entails and that it won't fall into their laps from the sky, and that others can't bring it to them ready-made, without a domestic effort.

You don't even need to look into Afghanistan, as this is still an issue even in Europe, especially former East Block countries like mine, and my country is one of the lucky ones that have been in the EU for nearly two decades at this point. If it's so difficult to clear the judiciary, politics and economy from corrupt crooks, mafiosos and cronyists in a "civilized" and developed European country, you can imagine how hard it is in a heavily underdeveloped and impoverished country like Afghanistan. Do you think anyone swooped in from abroad to clean up the corruption issues in my country, rather than leaving it to the country's citizens ? Of course no one did. They might have provided some aid and know-how and encouraging words, but the tough work was left to the citizens of my country. At least those who were willing to reform things.

It's easy to bellow "the US is to blame, NATO is to blame, the EU is to blame, the soviets are to blame, the Taliban is to blame, all Afghanis are to blame" and play other blame games ad nauseam. Those who play blame games are usually people who are unwilling to acknowledge reality and some very real failings, and those who refuse to acknowledge that most of the agency, for good or bad, is in the hands of the people whom the whole situation concerns the most.

If most people in a country of 38 millions, like Afghanistan, couldn't put up a proper resistance to a force of at most 50 000, then I don't think Afghanis can talk much about unity or healthy patriotism. I mean, imagine Poland, or Ukraine or Argentina being taken over by a terrorist movement the size of a medium-sized town and putting up nearly no resistance to these. It would be absurd. For all those countries' flaws and past mistakes, they at least had a sense of patriotism and solidarity with their fellow citizens to defend the country from such a takeover. (Today, my country is celebrating the beginning of an armed and organized uprising against its fascist puppet regime and occupation during WWII. Those who took part in the uprising were greatly outgunned, had little material advantages of any sort, and I could go on. Don't you tell me that people in 1940s Slovakia were more capable fighters against a whole militarist wannabe-empire and its heavily subsidized puppets, than 2020s Afghanis are against what is ultimately just a bigger domestic terrorist movement.)

Long story short, as much as we can help the various Afghanis, it is their country and they have the main agency to change it for better... or for worse. The onus and the blame is primarily on them, whether we like it or not. I'm no more at fault that many men in Afghanistan are mindless women-haters and women-beaters, any more than a peaceful-minded Afghan bloke is to blame that the Taliban exists. We shouldn't officially accept the Taliban takeover (much like how we didn't accept the USSR taking over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in WWII or Russia attempt to conquer Ukraine a few years ago), but at the same time, we shouldn't deceive ourselves that Afghanistan needs constant rescuing. It doesn't. Even the Libyans overthrew Ghaddafi on their own, as squabbling as they are now - but that's part of a country's maturation process.

The Taliban is also shooting the entire country in the foot. By excluding women from various walks of life or giving them only token positions, they are inconveniencing the country economically. They're not even good at running the country in a cynical fashion. Sooner or later, this will breed resentment among the female population, especially the women who came of age in the last twenty years, when it was easier for them to study, get a decent education, get a job, even a more sophisticated one. The folly of all authoritarians and totalitarians is that, whether they hide nominally behind lip service to religion, or tradition, or nationalism, or any sort of triumphalist ideology, it will sooner or later come back to bite them in the arse. And it will also bite everyone who uncritically followed them and supported them, and didn't have a care in the world when it comes to such a simple thing as a human conscience. Unfortunately, many entirely innocent and decent people will still suffer. But even so, let's not pretend that the apathy of people towards tyrannical rule by extremist movements is infinite. People are sadly very good at apathy, but history is littered with milestones when people had enough and they woke up. How long that waking up in Afghanistan will take, and how long it'll take for Afghanis to relaise they can govern their country without corruption or narrow-minded tribalism and bigotry, I don't know. It might happen one day, and I won't be betting on when.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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