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[Paphitis]

The Afghan Government was indeed culpable and extremely corrupt. Probably the thing that got them in the end.

Imagine being a soldier and seeing all of that, or not being paid.

It could explain why.

But the Afghan people are victims of that corruption and now victims of the coalition withdrawal.

As the west, can we justify our pullout just because the Afghan Government was corrupt? Not in my opinion we can’t.

They may have been corrupt but there were also massive social gains for the Afghan People. After 20 years, women can now read and write. Get degrees and professional qualifications, as well as drive a car. Be gainfully employed and live in dignity.

That may now regress again.

Afghan cities were becoming modern cosmopolitan centres. People lived with less fear.

We needed the Afghan Government to succeed. But we pulled the rug from under them.

[Kikapu]

[Pyrpolizer]

Imo the vast majority of those people crowding the airport to get out of Afganistan don't do it because they are afraid to stay, or because they run any risk. They just see it as a great opportunity to emigrate, escaping from this poor country and go somewhere where they think it rains $$$$.
If the planes were not from rich countries but rather from India or Iran the airport would be almost empty if Afgans.

That said, every nation has to go through it's own road towards social development. The Taliban and Al kaida did not show up in Afganistan or elsewhere by accident. They showed up because some geniuses thought they should do what the prophet and the Koran said out of context. For example while Islam talks for forgiveness, understanding, empathy etc. some Al kaida think it's OK to take a 12 year old wife, with or without the consent of the parents, just because the prophet said "If you judge the character and faith of a young man as good enough then give him a woman to be his wife."

Social development quarantees that practices not acceptable to people may last for maximum about one generation.Up until the people themselves eradicate all this Al Kaida and Taliban nonsense.

[Paphitis]

Imo the vast majority of those people crowding the airport to get out of Afganistan don't do it because they are afraid to stay, or because they run any risk. They just see it as a great opportunity to emigrate, escaping from this poor country and go somewhere where they think it rains $$$$.
If the planes were not from rich countries but rather from India or Iran the airport would be almost empty if Afgans.

That said, every nation has to go through it's own road towards social development. The Taliban and Al kaida did not show up in Afganistan or elsewhere by accident. They showed up because some geniuses thought they should do what the prophet and the Koran said out of context. For example while Islam talks for forgiveness, understanding, empathy etc. some Al kaida think it's OK to take a 12 year old wife, with or without the consent of the parents, just because the prophet said "If you judge the character and faith of a young man as good enough then give him a woman to be his wife."

Social development quarantees that practices not acceptable to people may last for maximum about one generation.Up until the people themselves eradicate all this Al Kaida and Taliban nonsense.

It’s not a great opportunity.

They are only evacuating embassy staff, Afghan embassy workers, western air workers, and persons who worked in some capacity for the coalition, citizens, visa holders, and permanent residents and their immediate families.

My understanding the the 4100 that were evacuated by Australia had to be eligible persons of interest fitting in the above categories.

And the last flights would have been soldiers and their equipment. Those flights happened 2 days ago.

All these people did is force us to leave some people behind, such as citizens. Now they need to get onto American, British, French or Canadian Flights or they are in deep sheet with all the terrorist activity from ISIS.

They interviewed a few of them via Skype.

[Paphitis]

But ISIS it would appear don’t want the US or coalition to withdraw.

They are trying to be as provocative as they can be.

The question is, what the response will be.

Will the US wait till the withdrawal is complete, and then try and find as many ISIS camps or strongholds as possible and send them a few presents? Or will the US change its mind?

I got a feeling something is going to happen now.

ISIS is being very audacious. Can’t fathom US not responding in some way within days of the withdrawal.

ISIS are literally begging for it.

And something tells me that the Taliban are also facing a big problem with ISIS. Like Syria all over again.

[Paphitis]

As I suspected! The Missile strikes have already started.

That’s a very big move by the Americans considering the fact they have t got everyone out yet.

[dinos]

There are a couple important points to note re: the US and Afghanistan...

1. US involvement shifted from winning a war to maintaining a grift. We could've got out of there after bin Laden was killed. But some 90% of all the money that went to Afghanistan has come back to the US. Plenty of generals and military contractors are living in mansions in DC, and nobody wanted to stop that easy money from coming in.

2. Keeping the above in mind, the Pentagon could've started mobilizing the exit of military equipment once Trump made his deal with the Taliban. But they didn't, betting that they could talk either Trump or Biden out of withdrawing. The generals rolled both Trump and Obama multiple times. Why would Biden be any different?

3. The Trump admin could've started processing visas, etc had he paid less mind to trying to prove that the election was stolen........

4. The media has turned on Biden because they make a lot of ad revenue from defense agencies. Several of these companies have seen their stocks appreciate by multiple thousands percent since we got into Afghanistan. Neither the media nor the defense agencies want THEIR gravy trains to end either.

5. My money's on the generals having lied to Biden re: how strong the Taliban was. Either that or their intelligence was just extremely piss-poor. Regardless, the only way to stop these wars is to pull the rug from under the generals' feet. Getting out of there was never going to be any better than this, no matter who spearheaded it. This is what it looks like when you've lost a war and are getting the hell out.

6. Gerald Ford's approval ratings increased sharply after the US exit from Saigon. It's ugly now; it'll likely improve somewhat in the next couple of months. Biden has bigger approval-ratings problems with the delta variant, and with his administration caving to political pressure to reimpose restrictions. Even bigger problems with the eviction moratorium being struck down by the supreme court.

I'd anticipate Biden's approval numbers to remain positive by less than 1-2% while he works his way through the domestic issue he's facing. I've been wrong about this crap before though, so who knows.

[Pyrpolizer]

.
1. US involvement shifted from winning a war to maintaining a grift. We could've got out of there after bin Laden was killed. But some 90% of all the money that went to Afghanistan has come back to the US.

That's the standard myopic economic view of wars. What it actually describes is a situation where the public spent $100 taxpayers money, $90 of them went to the pockets of military contractors and generals who eventually delivered nothing back to the taxpayers, and $10 were lost for ever. So we end up to the fallacious conclussion that wars don't really cost much, it's just redistribution of money.

The truth however is that the taxpayer got ZERO $ return from the money taken from him let aside the cost of dead people.
It might be 2-5 million for each.

Compare with spending $100 to build a new highway.

Your other points are truly good, just avoid economic analyses from dumb journalists

[Lordo]

Welcome to the world of Talibanistan.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/taliban-soldiers-with-guns-surround-afghan-tv-news-anchor-as-he-urges-viewers-not-to-be-afraid/ar-AANVvtr?ocid=entnewsntp

[Lordo]

Do you suppose Trump offered to leave them the jet fighters and helicopters as wel as all sorts of weapons to get them to allow the yanks to leave without being shot at. So not only Trump screwed the people who helped the yanks he also screewd the northern alliance too.

Very nice.