I don't know if this is the right place to put this. I'm not even sure I want to discuss this terrible, terrible situation. But I see it's been discussed at the old joint—and at the typically incisive level, where some correctly lay blame at the feet of a certain New Jersey troubadour—so thought maybe we should have a place where those who wish to chime in can.
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Where the banned are
That's the issue, actions have long term consequences.
That's visible in the UK in the price we're currently paying for the vandalism of the Thatcher government.
Similarly, the West's intervention in a myriad of nations.....yea unto the British Empire, is the cause of many global issues today.
If you pardon the pun..that video is right on the money..and why things will never change until Omerica changes.
As a fairly uninformed non US citizen and, as you say, allowing for the fact that President Biden acted on the advice he got, I agree it seems like a huge US military intelligence failure.
But from the cheap seats, this is not a partisan issue. George W Bush went hunting for someone who wasn't even there before turning the whole thing into a nation building exercise. Obama promised to get the troops out and ended up sending more. Trump appears to have signed a deal that amounted to the Taliban saying 'we pinky promise to behave'. Biden proceeded on that basis to finally withdraw... whether on bad advice or not, he has to wear being left holding the tainted parcel once the music stopped.
Of course, Australia as a long term ally of the US diligently followed you in there and are also left with armed forces ravaged by that twenty year commitment and we now have the news reports of our government desperately acting to get Australians flown out just like yourselves.
This has been a pattern since at least Vietnam, where Australia lost more troops than any other country other than the US. I know it's because of our relative geographic proximity to places like North Korea and especially China... I just hope that if our comparatively minnow nation was ever threatened militarily, that the US will come to help us the way we have backed them.
I don't blame Biden at all on what has happened over there. The Generals and Intelligence community is at fault, all need to be fired all ready. Unless Biden didn't follow their advise and the generals are now falling on the sword for him. Don't know and either way is a disaster!
We (STL) are expecting up to 1000 refugees over the next couple weeks, I welcome all of them. Hopefully they can get their lives back together and be a great asset to our community, as the Bosnian refugees did back in the 90's.
Did they not used to call Afghanistan the "Graveyard of Empires"? (Or words to that effect.)
We never learn do we? We (the west) have been interfering in other countries for time immemorial- building 'empires', exporting missionaries to 'convert the savages to Christianity', trying to impose western style democracies etc etc. It never works, we leave behind a legacy of hatred which comes back to haunt us.
I don't really know enough about the history of Afghanistan but 20 years of our presence has cost lives and left the country in no better state than it was, at least as far as I can see.