And we certainly shouldn't be stepping away from the war crimes and terror wrought by our own troops in Afghanistan. Were the Taliban really going to look that scary after that?

The Taliban secured hearts and minds and ultimately saw off the invading forces. They have their country back. Just as the excesses of the Shaq in Iran and the CIA lead coup sowed the seeds for support for the Ayatollah, so this played itself out.

As to picking on Biden instead of Trump my god. It was the Trump organisation who reached out to the Taliban and negotiated a full withdrawal by May. That Biden didn't tweek around the edges to your satisfaction hardly allows you to point the finger at him more than Trump. What a ridiculous proposition.

Finally to the rest of the grab bag of issues you have tossed in to this the one which is particularly galling is: “What we are seeing in Afghanistan is an international version of defunding the police”. No we aren't. What we are seeing is a people accepting an alternative to abusive invaders in their country. That simple, the lesser of two evils.

Well said Steele.
It is an unarguable fact that the war against the people of Afghanistan accomplished nothing beyond causing untold suffering and making the weapon manufacturing companies and their shareholders (aka the war pigs with their snouts in the trough) richer.

As everybody knows never-ending wars are good for business, especially when generated by abstract ideals such as the open ended "war against terror". War is of course organized terror.

Meanwhile why not check out the essay by Stan Goff titled In Praise of Joe Biden - Goff otherwise loathes everything about Slippery Joe.

And by the way this tragic situation has zero/zilch/nothing to do with "wokeness".

All this proves is that the woke west is not capable of fighting a war against guerrilla warfare. In the situation where even when they know without any doubt that a group are guerrillas, our troops can take no action against them, unless they are actually shooting at them at the moment.

Under the rules of engagement the western troops had no chance of winning. They should never been expected to do the impossible. Yes the desire to get Osama bin Laden & al-Qaeda was probably irresistible, but to try to win a place like Afghanistan was ridiculous.

Afghanistan is a place of fluid alliances, obviously not understood by most Ozzies. Your enemy today is your friend to morrow, & your enemy next week, none can ever be trusted. As seen with the well trained & very well equipped "army", 4 times the size of Taliban forces, they only fight when they feel like it, & have something personal to gain.

Add the fact that most Afghan men hated the freedom the west demanded for their women, & they were a lost cause from the start.

Yes Ozzie & Pommy troops cleared communist insurgents out om Malaya in the immediate post WW11 period, but since the woke brigade got into power, it is now impossible with the restrictions placed on our troops, & should never be tried again.

Dear Hasbeen,

How's it going old cock?

So the Afghans saw off the Russians because the Russians were too woke?

See how ludicrous you are yet again.

There'll be plenty of time over the next months and years to try to work out what went wrong in Afghanistan in general and particularly in the last two months. Let's face it, there is plenty of blame to go around, from Bush and Powell through Obama's missed opportunities, the military revolt against Trump and the debacle that is the present Whitehouse.

In the end, it is clear that nation building isn't possible. At the least you can't take a backward tribal society and turn it into a modern liberal democracy in a generation. The ambitions were too high and the commitment too low. The original aim was to get al-Queda and bin Laden. Once that was achieved, the mission should have been called off.

To find out just how badly this was handled, we are going to have to wait until those involved, who have the most to hide, have moved on. Clearly the intelligence and military leadership failed badly and that will eventually become apparent, but only after that leadership moves, or is moved, on.

Over the coming weeks the mainstream media will work overtime to salvage the Biden presidency from the disaster. Six months from now we'll be told how this was the best organised retreat since Washington left New York. And the anxiously gullible will buy it.

But its hard to polish this turd, particularly as everyone is trying to point the finger at anyone else. The military is now saying Biden ignored its advice. It now seems that a rapid response group put together by Trump/Pompeo for just this sort of problem was defunded by Biden. Despite claims that Biden just implemented Trump's planned withdrawal, even now that is being proven wrong.

As things now stand, the Biden presidency is unravelling. Polls show that 10% of those who voted for him, now regret their decision (and that's before they even poll all those in cemeteries who were his greatest supporters).

Unfortunately for the Democrats and the nation, the alternative to Biden is Harris and that's no alternative.

Yes they were SR, & you know it.

They like the yanks went down the hearts & minds path, a total waste of time in a place where loyalty is only bought until a better offer is received.

Bet your boots, & socks if you wear them, the CCP will go through the place like a dose of salts, if the Taliban don't toe the line as demanded.