Taliban Already Breaking Promises

[Stickybottle]

Well what a surprise eh !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-58219963

Starting as they no doubt mean to go on

[Stickybottle]

Jackdaw33
A winky smile is ;-) rotated through 90 degrees

Ah right
Thank you for that jackdaw
Maybe an eye roll might have been more appropriate from ichkeria in light of the gravitas of the current status there

[Gromit]

I confess I cannot make Any sense of the posts before this.

The UK and US have run away.

What ever happens next is a bit irrelevant because we have run away.

Thousands of women and children might be being machine gunned every day (or maybe none). But we have left, so whatever faith they put in the UK, was sadly misplaced.

[ichkeria]

The eye roll, had I known how to do it, would have been more appropriate for the follow ups

[ichkeria]

Well you evidently didn’t agree with them being there in the first place Gromit so it’s a bit rich complaining about them running away

[Stickybottle]

21.42
Must admit I thought the same
Lots of people moan about coalition forces supposedly taking over a country and allegedly installing their own puppet governments
When they subsequently leave and let the country run itself there are more complaints
No wonder Biden left so quickly because he was dammed if he did and damned if he did not
He decided that the place was not worth one more American soldiers life
Cannot fault him for that

20 years of maximum effort and sacrifice was not matched by the indigenous population so he has cut his losses
He would get my vote

[sevenOP]

@21:42 Thu 19th Aug 2021... smacks of "you didn't vote so you have no right to talk about politics", or, more contemporary, "you didn't take the vaccine so you cannot fully participate in society, or enjoy all the freedoms" [ ;o )

[Gromit]

Why. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place and now we are gone.
I am not happy about many $trillions wasted.
I think the UK have squandered about £40billion.
And for what?

[sevenOP]

"Lots of people moan about coalition forces supposedly taking over a country and allegedly installing their own puppet governments
When they subsequently leave and let the country run itself there are more complaints"

Actions have consequences AND responsibilities.
Brits born now are not responsible for the 'slave trade', but certain governments that took actions in a still existing situation, have some responsibility for ameliorating detrimental situations that have arisen from those actions.

[Hopkirk]

The US and UK have run away?

So how long should we have been sending our young men over there? At some point we had to leave.

If you want to blame anyone, blame George W Bush and Tony Blair.

[Stickybottle]

So how much longer and how many more troops should we have sacrificed sevenOP ?
What is an acceptable length of time for us to train an army and baby walk a country to some form of democracy ?
The place is lawless and run by warlords
We have done our bit
Time for somebody to make a stand and fight for their own country instead of scrambling for a plane and leaving their women and children behind

[youngmafbog]

//I think the UK have squandered about £40billion.//

Ignoring the loss to life and limb, I often wonder what the breakdown of this figure is. I assume it includes service personal, weapons and ammo of varying descriptions. Would these items not have to be paid for anyway? Ammunition does not have a massive shelf life and if not firing at someone else would have to be released on MOD land to keep the troops in practice.

So what is the real extra monetary cost. Obviously there will be one.

[youngmafbog]

As for the Taliban, I think it was Ick the other day who posted they dont have massive control on their troops, well not as yet anyway.

Also there does seem to be conflicting reports so its still wait and see time I'm afraid.

[ToraToraTora]

YMB 13:33, TROB love to quote the total costs rather than the extra costs for a particular deployment. Essentially most of the costs would be incurred anyway. A bit more fuel and ammo, bit of building etc, basically, the rest we have already so no doubt the £40bn is the total but in reality it's probably an extra couple of Billion over and above what we are normally spending at most.

[William51]

This is a right mess. Donald Trump and now Joe Biden have got blood on their hands. It is difficult to see what, if anything, can be done to help Afghanistan. The Americans, UK, and allies should have stayed there permanently until the country stabilized. And could the UN have done more to help?.

[Jackdaw33]

It's not Trump and Biden who have blood on their hands but Bush and Blair.

[Khandro]

William : //The Americans, UK, and allies should have stayed there permanently until the country stabilized. //

Stabilized into what?

[Khandro]

Afghanistan has 40 minor languages with 200 dialects in addition to the official Pashto and Persian languages. Most non-official languages spoken in Afghanistan are spoken by ethnic groups, including indigenous people of the area.

There are as many as 14 recognized ethnic groups in the country, with Pashtuns making up between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population. Tajiks account for about 25 percent, while Hazaras and Uzbeks are about 9 percent each. Then there are a handful of other groups in smaller numbers.

The overwhelming majority of the population are Muslims with a completely different outlook on life to you or me.
Democracy isn't their main desire, a lesson which should have now been learned by the West after decades of attempts to force onto them .

This is why I ask; stabilise into what?