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The Taliban take Kabul : Comments
By Binoy Kampmark, published 17/8/2021In departing and leaving stranded colleagues to their fate, the bookish Ghani, preferring pen to gun, had time to leave a message on Facebook.
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Posted by diver dan, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 8:39:21 AM
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Let's see if the bozos who got Australian and Americans killed for nothing in that shithole country will get the message and stay away from the Middle East and Islamic fanatics. My prediction is that they will not learn anything, and that they will repeat the stupidity sometime in the near future.
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 9:29:11 AM
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Hell, the Afghan so-called army didn't fire a shot against the Taliban, who took over in a matter of hours. The president was first out of the country. Yet, the chattering class is talking about "Western shame". The only thing that the West should be ashamed of is trying to fight gutless Afghans wars for them, and bringing about the deaths of Australians and Americans, when what goes on there, and will always go on there, is nothing to do with the defence of Australia or America, whose political classes are doing very little in that area.
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 9:41:21 AM
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Ah so. And I don't give a flying french frankfurt! I think we should have stayed the course, even when that meant, we used some tactical nuclear weapons on these monsters as they crossed borders to regroup and continue their campaign of endless attrition.
I mean the Afghan army had 25,000 men the Taliban 7500. 7500 men, 5000 Kurdistan female warriors could have whipped hands down! And could have been deployed but for Trump's easy come easy go (plenty more where that came from) treatment of allies. Moreover, the Afghan men could have been far better led with the inclusion of Aussie advisors and significant, ruthless artillery and air support replete with smart bombs. We had these animals down and out and only needed a coup de grace. But that would have meant we left the military experts at the helm calling all the shots as opposed to gormless bean-counting pollies continually pulling the teeth of our fighting men and women! Furthermore, the missing element here was the rapid economic development the Afghan people may have fought with implacable resolve if they had it! But, it was basically, too little too late, mostly all stick and no carrot plus a few handouts, bribery and corruption/i.e., American capitalism? Alan B. Posted by Alan B., Tuesday, 17 August 2021 11:11:49 AM
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Hey Binoy
I wouldn't come down too hard on the poor Afghan President Ghani. I am advised that when President Ghani abandoned his people, by fleeing overseas: He "did not leave Kabul empty-handed. A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kabul said, “Four of his cars cars were full of American money, Ghani tried to stuff more of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it would fit. Ghani had to leave some of the money lying on the tarmac at Kabul Airport." Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 12:58:38 PM
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On 12 August US 'intelligence' advised that Kabul could fall within 90 DAYS of the withdrawal of US troops.
90 HOURS later, Kabul fell. This is not a Saigon moment. This is far worse. The US has been thoroughly humiliated. The entire US swamp of foreign affairs 'experts' have been shown to be utterly incompetent. The US military, far more concerned about indoctrinating 'Critical Race Theory' into their training than in actually winning wars, has been thoroughly humiliated. Don't even think about the current administration who have demonstrated that they are utterly incapable of even organising an abject surrender. There is oodles of blame to go around in the US for this failure. You can see it as everyone rushes to point the finger at someone else.The one certainty in it all is that no one will actually be forced to walk the plank over the greatest humbling a super-power has had to face since the defeat of Varus. After the debacle of South Vietnam, the US effectively withdrew from the world and suffered further humiliations in Cambodia and Iran. They demonstrated a complete unwillingness to get involved in any other foreign issues which is why the Russians felt they could invade Afghanistan with impunity. The Taiwanese will be looking with trepidation across the China Sea today, knowing that the power they relied on for their freedom has been shown to be a paper tiger led by morons and cowards. The CCP will be trying to work out what to take first - consolidate their winnings in Afghanistan, push India around a little more, or go for the big prize in Formosa. Eventually the US did stabilise the situation after 1975 by finding a saviour in Reagan. But much had been lost in the meantime. What will be lost this time? Australia needs to worry bout that now. I doubt we have the personnel to make those assessments, but we have to come to terms with the fact that the CCP has won and we need to live in that world. Posted by mhaze, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 4:22:31 PM
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The Taliban take Kabul, & they are welcome to it.
Wouldn't it be great if China did go into Afghanistan, & get caught up in the mire the place is. They may be more ruthless than Russia, but would that help much? Of course the yanks, meaning the west, can't do much about China, or they will take their electronic components & drug industry basic products & go home, leaving us all sick & in the dark. We really have stuffed up, & our future does not look good. Meanwhile the elites wage a pretend war on the poor little CO2 molecule, as if it has some significance to our future. Talk about destroying our future tilting at windmills, Don Quixote was less mad. God help our grand kids. Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 4:43:06 PM
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China has said that it will be interested in cooperating with the Taliban. No surprise there!
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 5:32:12 PM
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The real question about all this is, how many Taliban are residing in Australia !
They'll be linking up with the 'reformed' ISIS types before long. Posted by individual, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 5:47:57 PM
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Dear mhaze,
Your take on the Nazis was pretty abysmal but this takes the cake. The Yanks went in to spank a country for harbouring Al Queda and 9/11. We went along because we need to keep brownie points with the Yanks, not because any Afghans poses a threat to us in the slightest. They severely degraded the Taliban but held hands with some spectacularly unsavoury war lords to do so. We held up our end of the bargain. They splashed a hell of a lot of money to those they recognised as corrupt officials and militia, and turned a blind eye to terrible behaviour by many of them. Vengeance was never going to create a democracy and those who thought otherwise were kidding themselves. Trump had done a deal with the Taliban and wanted the troops gone by May. Biden kept them there until August. Of course the withdrawal was going to be fraught and it wasn't done well, but the fact is after 20 years the Yanks are gone. The Vice piece from 8 years ago showed the missteps the Yanks were determined to conduct. The writing was very much on the wall even then. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI&ab_channel=VICE Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 7:39:12 PM
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SR wrote:"Your take on the Nazis was pretty abysmal "
Well anyone who reads that thread will see that you understand the rise of the Nazis in the same way as my budgie understands Newton's Third Law of Motion. But it is is true that my attempts to educate you on this have proven to be an abysmal failure. You say that my post takes the cake and then proceed to utter not a single word to illuminate that assertion. SR, I know you've been made to look the fool over the past month or so. But if you want to salvage some self-esteem, you need to do it by intelligent argument rather than untethered assertions. Posted by mhaze, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 10:34:32 PM
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Joe Biden went directly against the advice of his generals and made a complete balls-up of the withdrawal humiliating the US in the process and has to take 100% of the blame.
The only positive note is that his presidency is now in the toilet as with his chances of re-election. In one stroke he has made Trump look competent. Posted by shadowminister, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 4:07:03 AM
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Earlier I wrote: "The Taiwanese will be looking with trepidation across the China Sea today"
In today's 'Global Times' which is really just a mouth-piece for the CCP they wrote this... "“The DPP authorities [the ruling party in Taiwan] need to keep a sober head, and the secessionist forces should reserve the ability to wake up from their dreams. From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and the US military won’t come to help.” It goes on.... “the US abandoned its allies in South Vietnam” in 1975. “Is this some kind of omen of Taiwan’s future fate?” Australia, Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines all need to be considering or reconsidering what they'll do in the event of the Chinese deciding to go all in on conquering Taiwan. In the past it was an easy decision - we'd support the US efforts to save the island. But we now know that, even if the US military were capable of such a defence - and they probably aren't - the current utterly incompetent and corrupt US leadership have no stomach for it. Taiwan today is on it's own facing what is now the most powerful military force on the planet. We have to decide if we will make a symbolic effort to defend the crumbling world order by siding with Taiwan or start making our accommodations to the new world hegemon. Posted by mhaze, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 10:24:26 AM
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Take note how it’s done Christians!
Dan