https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/11/biden-afghanistan-not-my-problem-503928
"But Ruger said he is heartened by the Biden administration’s unwillingness to give in to his critics in both parties who want to reconsider the withdrawal. “The Biden administration should stay the course,” he said.
Others in his camp agreed.
Among them is retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, an Afghanistan veteran who has been lobbying for more than a decade to withdraw American combat troops. He insisted the pace at which the Afghan security forces have crumbled only underscores the futile nature of banking on a corrupt government in Kabul to stabilize the country.
“Now you are seeing the bitter fruit,” said Davis, who is now a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for diplomacy over military force. “We keep lying to ourselves and perpetuating the myth we are accomplishing something. Now it is exposed.”
metmike: I can see both sides of the issue but still agree strongly with the statement in quotes above. 2 decades with thousands of dead Americans and a trillion dollars and exactly what did we accomplish?
In 2008, I voted for Obama BECAUSE OF McCain and his "we stay in Iraq, until the job is finished platform narrative"
In other words, we stay in Iraq................forever and ever.
A person looking realistically at the objective facts, including the history, people and current dynamics, would KNOW with high confidence that what we say we are doing this for is a waste of time, money and lives.
There are 200 countries on the planet and the US is greatly struggling to police it's own high crime urban areas................where better policing WOULD help because we are mostly civilized people that can be controlled(crime) with better law enforcement.
We need to end the 70+ years of trying to control other countries with miserable failures as a track record and mostly for our political and other agenda.
Much of the prior motivation for terrorist attacks on us are exactly because we are doing this.......trying to control the Middle East but it gets twisted into a false narrative that we have to beat them in their homeland so they don't come here.
It's exactly because we are trying to do that over there that cause them to despise us the most and motivate them to come here. They are at war with the US and the best way to hurt us has been to come over here with terrorism directed at unprotected civilians and facilities........easy targets.
Withdrawing in Afghanistan, probably means bad things because the Taliban takes over.
But the Taliban loses much of their incentive to obliterate America over here because they won what they wanted all along.
Jim Accosta on CNN had 2 generals on, Thursday afternoon and they were all hammering Biden on this decision.
https://news.yahoo.com/liz-cheney-says-debacle-afghanistan-090541957.html
From its start in 2001 through April 2021, the war in Afghanistan has cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $2.261 trillion
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/afghanistan-war-cost-troops-withdraw-taliban-advances
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops-intl-08-15-21/index.html
Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, on Sunday fled the country as the Taliban terrorist group surrounded the capital, Kabul, according to a senior official, while the Taliban claimed hours later that it had entered the Afghan presidential palace.
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, confirmed on social media that Ghani fled the country, coming about a day after Ghani claimed that he would be able to muster the remnants of the Afghan government forces to mount a defense of Kabul, a city of 6 million.
“The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation,” Abdullah said in a video, according to a translation of his comments on social media. “God should hold him accountable.”
Videos circulating online showed the Taliban entering Kabul, with crowds of supporters greeting them. The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, said in an alert that the Kabul airport was taking fire and called on American staff to shelter in place.
“The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly including at the airport. There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place,” an embassy security alert stated.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told media outlets on Sunday that the Taliban should not attack U.S. forces or staff and said it would “be met with a very strong, decisive response.”
Around the same time Ghani departed Sunday, the Taliban terrorist group wrote that it ordered its fighters to enter Kabul after surrounding the Afghan capital city, arguing that it is necessary to prevent “common thieves and robbers” from harming people.
“The citizens of Kabul should not feel any fear from the [Taliban]” and their “forces will enter Kabul city very easily,” said a spokesman for the group. “The military units of the Islamic Emirate entered Kabul to provide security,” the spokesman later wrote.
The Taliban, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department decades ago, also directed its fighters to not enter people’s houses “or to harass or annoy anyone.”
| Rank | War | Years | Deaths | Deaths per day | U.S. population in first year of war | Deaths as percentage of population |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | American Civil War | 1861–1865 | 655,000 (est.)(U.S./Confederate)[86] | 449 | 31,443,000 | 2.083% (1860) |
| 2 | World War II | 1941–1945 | 405,399 | 297 | 133,402,000 | 0.307% (1940) |
| 3 | World War I | 1917–1918 | 116,516 | 200 | 103,268,000 | 0.110% (1920) |
| 4 | Vietnam War | 1961–1975 | 58,209 | 11 | 179,323,175 | 0.032% (1970) |
| 5 | Korean War | 1950–1953 | 36,574 | 30 | 151,325,000 | 0.024% (1950) |
| 6 | American Revolutionary War | 1775–1783 | 25,000 | 11 | 2,500,000 | 1.00% (1780) |
| 7 | War of 1812 | 1812–1815 | 15,000 | 15 | 8,000,000 | 0.207% (1810) |
| 8 | Mexican–American War | 1846–1848 | 13,283 | 29 | 21,406,000 | 0.057% (1850) |
| 9 | Iraq War | 2003–2011 | 4,576 | 2 | 294,043,000 | 0.002% (2010) |
| 10 | Philippine–American War | 1899–1902 | 4,196 | 3.8 | 72,129,001 | 0.006% (1900) |
| 11 | War in Afghanistan | 2001–present | 2,420 | 0.4 | 294,043,000 | 0.001% (2010) |
| 12 | Spanish–American War | 1898 | 2,246 | 9.6 | 62,022,250 | 0.004% (1890) |
"Deaths per day" is the total number of Americans killed in military service, divided by the number of days between the dates of the commencement and end of hostilities. "Deaths per population" is the total number of deaths in military service, divided by the U.S. population of the year indicated.
Some Previous posts on the Middle East that I stumbled on:
Kurds.... Assad...random thoughts
9 responses |
Started by GunterK - Oct. 23, 2019, 9:22 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41658/
So much for the troops pulled out of Syria coming home
14 responses |
Started by pj - Oct. 20, 2019, 1:30 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41403/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Gladiator vs Trump
Started by GunterK - Oct. 18, 2019, 7:40 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41303/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US and Turkey agree to ceasefire in Syria.
Started by TimNew - Oct. 17,
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41208/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
why pulling out of Syria was the right thing
11 responses |
Started by GunterK - Oct. 15, 2019, 10:18 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41089/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Syria...looking through the propaganda narrative...
Started by GunterK - Oct. 17,
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41171/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ISIS Families Flee
Started by joj - Oct. 13, 2019, 12:57 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/40925/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
bringing home the fallen
7 responses |
Started by GunterK - Oct. 12, 2019, 12:17 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/40850/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Continuing Mayhem in Syria
7 responses |
Started by joj - Oct. 12, 2019, 7:51 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/40854/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Turkish Troops Cross Border
16 responses |
Started by joj - Oct. 9, 2019, 8:05 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/40666/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Trump Betrays Kurdish Allies
13 responses |
Started by joj - Oct. 7, 2019, 11:20 a.m.
Great one Gunter!
'Game over': Westerners rush to leave Kabul, rescue Afghans (msn.com)
rules have not changed because Biden is in the WH......weakness is an easy target
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/567966-taliban-seize-power-as-washington-debates-what-went-wrong
"He also pinned some of the blame for the declining situation in Afghanistan on the Trump administration, arguing that the deal brokered by the former president put Biden in a predicament with no good way out"
metmike: One thing that went wrong is that we stayed there for well over a decade TOO LONG with no hope to accomplish anything that entire time.
I thought that Obama was going to get us out soon after being elected. What the heck happened to that?
I support this decision but Biden totally messed this up.
1. He basically announced to the Taliban, "hey you guys's we're bailing, the place is yours now........BEFORE he got our people out safety. This is a retarded military strategy. What smart military leader would ever do something that dumb?
2. Blaming Trump? This forced Biden into this predicament? The justfication for them leaving has ZERO to do with anything that Trump did or what Trump left them(based on why Biden said that he was leaving. This is just a case of trying to blame an unpopular decision and REALLY, REALLY bad way of handling it on somebody, instead of owning it.
3. For the past 15 years I wanted us out of the Middle East(it's why I was a never McCain guy) and applaud Biden for finally doing it but good lord, as a chess coach for 25 years, think that he would make a horrible chess player(telling the opponent his next move) and then blaming his loss on some other guy that played the chess game before his (-:
But here's the bigger problem. This isn't a chess game. It's the real world and we know already that somebody else is telling Biden what to do because of his faltering cerebral functions. What sort of key people does he have giving him critical advice when they advise him to handle the withdrawal this badly?
Not sure if there would have been a way to make America look worse.
Maybe I'm missing something.
What do others think?
what sort of people giving him advice??? Well we have Kamala who has been busy bailing out blm'ers the last 4 years, We have he smartest guy Joe knows in his drug addicted, small minded, son, and we have several generals in this new wok defense department who are pushing climate change and diversity. Just that group right there would be enough influence to screw up 1/2 the world.
Funny mcfarm,
I'm sure this is way above Kamala's area of expertise. She can't even manage the southern border crisis and especially funny about Hunter.
One would think that Biden got much of his advise from generals and military leaders. But those guys would rarely do it this way and it looks like they disagreed with him.
President Biden’s decision to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan ran counter to the recommendations of his top military commanders, who feared it could undermine security in the country.
"Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, who leads NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all recommended retaining the current force of 2,500 troops while stepping up diplomacy to try to cement a peace agreement, U.S. officials say.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, himself a retired military commander for the region, shared the concerns of the senior officers, cautioning that withdrawing all U.S. troops would suspend what amounted to an insurance policy for maintaining a modicum of stability in the country, the officials said."
metmike: So who exactly advised him to do it this way?
I guess it's possible that he actually decided.
you really think Obama and his left overs were not involved? They are involved in every dumbass decision Biden makes.
Gunter,
That was a wonderful contribution and very enlightening to read. I think everybody should read that to review the situation because there was way to much to remember exactly how we got to this point.
It also reminds me of why I was expecting Obama to use Bin Laden's death in 2011 as the opportunity to get out of there after thinking for years that there was nothing but unproductive deaths and tax payer money and them hating us ahead if we stayed there.
So good riddance, we are finally leaving but the manner of the exit was almost a gift to the Taliban and embarrassment to US leadership.
There's an outside but not likely chance that they wanted the Taliban to take over quickly like this, knowing it was totally inevitable.
Why is that?
The more fighting and resistance to prevent the inevitable take over, the less bloodshed.
With that in mind. I'm rethinking my position of this being a totally botched exit strategy to one of possibly being smarter than anybody, including me was able to imagine.............and it appears that the Biden people also didn't imagine.
For us to believe this was their intent, we have to assume they WANTED the Taliban to take over ASAP and from their reaction after the fact, they appear more stunned than pleased...........but that could be, like always just the what they are pretending is their position to the public/media.
Here's that wonderful link from Gunter again.
https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan
So my contention is that they may have actually wanted the Taliban to take over fast to minimize bloodshed and causalities........which, for sure it did but they can't tell us that's what they wanted or it would obliterate their and the US credibility.
I mentioned earlier that I've been a chess coach for 25 years to 3,500 students and thought this was a catastrophic exit strategy blunder but am rethinking that for the following reason.
I tell my students, in a tournament, NEVER give up. Even if you're getting annihilated with no chance to win, your opponent can make a huge mistake and give you a stalemate/draw, by trapping you into a position, where you have no moves but are not in check.. especially inexperienced opponents. This happens ALL THE TIME and you're rewarded by getting half a point and the other competitor gets the other half point.....even though they crushed you the rest of the game.
In the real game of war and real life, that is the worst possible strategy.
In chess, you have nothing to lose but plastic pieces that just get reset on the board ahead of the next GAME.
In war/life, applying the same never give up strategy can NEVER result in the army without much left of their forces, suddenly winning because the huge, dominating force/army surrounded and trapped the losing force in a building and they couldn't get out.
In real life, the force/army/country that knows for sure the battle is lost is best surrendering ASAP to preserve what's left of the human lives and monetary cost to sustain their army while gaining nothing except more time sustaining more losses to them and both sides.
If this were chess, the US policy/strategy the past 2 decades, has been to take what was always going to be a Taliban win, from the beginning and unlike, on the chess board, when one side gradually has their army killed off and can no longer defend their king............and loses..........with only the original army lost........in this game, we just kept replacing our army with more pieces as the earlier ones got killed, so that we never lost or won but just had a game where more and more got killed....never ending.
There are 16 pieces on a chess board. In a chess game, that's the most number of pieces that can "be killed" in 1 legal game.
Our chess match in Afghanistan, using the adjusted rules that allow for replacing dead or damaged pieces, with reinforcements, caused us to lose something like 100 pieces over the course of 2+ decades............and never having the realistic chance to win, with the opponent acknowledging the win and the win staying permanent like with chess.
Any so called wins in Afghanistan by the US, would have been contested by the Taliban, that would then reverse that win as soon as the US decided to pull out.........like right now.
Delaying that inevitable end point because our generals love to play chess with human lives(they don't go to military school to learn to make peace) and never give up was a bad strategy in the real world.
The more I think about this, the more I support this decision........possibly, even the way that it was handled in the end!
https://www.wbay.com/2021/07/19/veteran-says-its-time-leave-afghanistan-save-lives/
Ron Paul says: Kabul Has Fallen — But Don’t Blame Biden
“The US war on Afghanistan was not lost yesterday in Kabul. It was lost the moment it shifted from a limited mission to apprehend those who planned the attack on 9/11 to an exercise in regime change and nation-building.”
“Congress has kicked the can down the road for 20 years, continuing to fund the Afghan war long after even they understood that there was no point to the US occupation”.
“The generals and other high-ranking military officers lied to their commander-in-chief and to the American people for years about progress in Afghanistan. The same is true for the US intelligence agencies. Unless there is a major purge of those who lied and misled, we can count on these disasters to continue until the last US dollar goes up in smoke.”
"The military industrial complex spent 20 years on the gravy train with the Afghanistan war. They built missiles, they built tanks, they built aircraft and helicopters. They hired armies of lobbyists and think tank writers to continue the lie that was making them rich. They wrapped their graft up in the American flag, but they are the opposite of patriots."
"The mainstream media has uncritically repeated the propaganda of the military and political leaders about Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and all the other pointless US interventions. Many of these outlets are owned by defense industry-connected companies. The corruption is deep."
"American citizens must also share some blame. Until more Americans rise up and demand a pro-America, non-interventionist foreign policy they will continue to get fleeced by war profiteers."
"Political control in Afghanistan has returned to the people who fought against those they viewed as occupiers and for what they viewed as their homeland. That is the real lesson, but don’t expect it to be understood in Washington. War is too profitable and political leaders are too cowardly to go against the tide. But the lesson is clear for anyone wishing to see it: the US global military empire is a grave threat to the United States and its future."
"the US global military empire is a grave threat to the United States and its future"
Didn't Pres Eisenhower say something similar?
PS Ron Paul's website was out of order. Had to use the link below to share this post
https://www.infowars.com/posts/ron-paul-kabul-has-fallen-but-dont-blame-biden/
Thanks Gunter,
This is one reason that I wished Ron Paul would have been president.
This is his home page but as you said, this particular article is not available....thanks for providing that.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-afghanistan-taliban-5abab9d1a552dc93b10a76973a8b3d25
metmike: Time for some damage control by spinning up some manufactured explanations for why this looks so bad but really isn't?
It's possible that Biden will be honest and take total responsibility of something that I already support his decision on ...... to leave quickly and minimize bloodshed..........then I will respect him for it too.
If he tells bs, then I will still support the decision but NOT respect his trying to manipulate peoples minds.............again.
Saigon was nothing like this….
One clip shows a large group of people trying to stop an airplane that’s preparing for take-off. Several people were run over by the airplane.A few desperate people are clinging to the outside of the moving airplane.Another picture shows them falling off, when the airplane is high in the air.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1427202316512514050
I missed the actual speech but it didn't seem to blame Trump or anybody else and he stood by this decision as hoped for.
What's going on over there is very sad right now but not nearly as sad as the cumulative damage that grew every day from the US OVER staying after we should have exited a decade (or more) ago.
Stopping the accumulating damage meant something like this HAD to happen at some point. I'm just not sure.........and nobody can be if this is exactly how they wanted it to go(and will not admit it) or if this really does surprise them, which seems very doubtful with them knowing all the dynamics extremely well......and is exactly why we are bailing.
Regardless, this will save many brave soldiers lives and tons of money.
Our soldiers are some of the bravest, most loyal/patriotic people on the planet that will risk their lives to accomplish whatever mission you send them to do. It was bs to continue to send them there on a mission that could never be successful at a cost of their lives and damaged lives for those returning.
yes these Bidens are a piece of work. What stunned me the most about the speech is when lying Joe said bravely he had been to Afghanistan 4 times. Lets summarize he has been in congress for 50 years was VP, now P. We have been at war there for 20 years and this incompetent fool brags he has been there 4 times. I have a nephew who did 2 tours, I have a grandson who is leaving for that hell hole. So this totals 3 trips for a farm family in the middle of fly over country versus 4 for one of the guys who was bragging just days ago about how this fiasco could never happen. Would never happen under "his" watch. For 20 years people in our gov has been feeding us crap about Afg...pure crap and now after we leave a trillion dollars and thousands of our best dead over there the truth is out. Lying Joe has earned that named along with most of his colleagues in congress and the select few like susan rice who are always in the background pulling the strings for the communists.
Well we have a mess now and not one damn thing we can do about it. China has huge investments there, and they are going to capitalize. Biden had paved the road with gold for Putin and they will capitalize.
Here was a previous discussion related to Trump pulling out of Syria that seemed to get as much flack as this decision.........without nearly as much at stake.
why pulling out of Syria was the right thing
11 responses |
Started by GunterK - Oct. 15, 2019, 10:18 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41089/
I want to especially emphasize the points on PTSD syndrome:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41089/#41092
https://www.verywellmind.com/veteran-ptsd-and-anger-2797439
https://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/04/17.html
https://www.military.com/benefits/veterans-health-care/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-overview.html
This is an interesting element to the situation.
We know with certainty, that this administration wants to flood our country with immigrants.
metmike: We can look at that in 2 different ways. Afghan's seeking political asylum in the US would be totally........TOTALLY legit. Watching those poor people in the airport clinging to planes and desperate to get away from the Taliban are exactly.....EXACTLY why we have a program like this in our country.
Surely this is part of Biden's plan, so why isn't he being more transparent about it right now? My guess is that he's getting massive flack about the southern border for totally botching the handling that crisis/disaster with the most illegal aliens into our country in 20 years and more (qualifying) immigrants might not be so well received.
I'm good with letting 30,000 of these Aghans in after they are vetted. How about you?
I have no problem helping refugees but there has to be rules and regulations. You cannot just open the gates willy nilly during a catastrophe and expect it to end well. Those people have to be vetted, most of us do remember a terrorist problem, a disease problem, and a ruling class problem from that part of the world. Get big gov involved and those with connections and money will get out and those who really helped and fought for their country will be left behind.
Good points mcfarm,
I think that no matter what happens from here, this is going to go down in history as a Big Biden Blunder.
His main blunder, as I just heard Oliver North state(who agrees with the withdrawal), is that he gave them a date for withdrawal........which is exactly what I was saying early in this thread.
In a chess match, you would never tell your opponent what your moves are going to be before you make them.
One of my best chess players had this bad habit of giving away his blunders.....before the opponent saw them.
Chris Zimmerman was a gifted chess player but like many youth players, would move too quickly instead of spending several extra minutes contemplating ALL of his options and the consequences. When he would make a bad move, then suddenly realize it several seconds after taking his hand off the piece(making it final) he would make this very loud noise(uhhh!) .
IMMEDIATELY, his opponent thought "wow, he made a mistake!" Then, his opponent changed their planned move to one that figures out what the mistake was to take advantage of it.
When Chris did this, he was helping his opponent.
Biden telling the Taliban when all the US troops were withdrawing was in fact a blunder but I totally support his decision to bring our soldiers home. I'm not so sure that this was not intentional because a quick take over by the Taliban might avoid even more blood shed but there are a dozen different dynamics that you and me will never know that played a role in the decision and its easy to be the Monday Morning Quarterback.
Here's an opinion from earlier this year that makes sense:
President Biden’s decision to bring home all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is a major mistake.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/568115-afghanistan-falls-in-chaos-five-takeaways?userid=565140
Biden has made tons of "mistakes" in just a few months. One of his biggest was yesterdays speech. He makes the same mistake over and over as the msm's allow it. He believes there are no cameras, microphones or video whenever he says something and no one will ever correct him. Well he came into office and with the stroke of a pen changed many Trump policies. He cannot come out yesterday and claim someone else owns this mess. He changed most everything else and he damn well could of changed this. Instead he points fingers, whines and wales and waits for today when the entire msm's will again ignore what he did and said just a few short months ago to cover his ass.
"Toward the end of his speech on Monday, Biden allowed that “the buck stops with me.”
It was an odd moment at the end of an address that had seemed to blame Trump and, to some extent, the Afghan people themselves for the disaster now unfolding."
"The U.S. had previously pledged to help evacuate over 80,000 Afghan civilians who qualify for SIVs, such as people who worked with the U.S. or international organizations and risk retribution from the Taliban.
Biden also said on Monday that the U.S. would evacuate thousands of American citizens who had been living and working in Afghanistan."
metmike: The manner in which this was done, only makes sense if this administrations main objective was those displaced 80,000 Afghans. As mentioned, there's tons of things that we will never know, unlike what we can know with absolute certainty...... about the science of climate and science of COVID (which has objective data and scientific evidence for all) because they will not tell us what they don't want us to know on political decisions........and only tell us what they want us to think.
This admininstration clearly wants to flood the country with immigrants as a top priority and is willing to to take on monumental bad press and legit massive mismanagement accusations at the southern border so it can allow over a million people to break in that should not be getting in.
Here's a wonderful opportunity for them to get in another 80,000 people(the number is probably more than 10 times that) and the absolute best part of it is that, now he has the American people and msn totally sympathizing with these poor people in Afghanistan(including me) and being on board with understanding the entire idea of why the US needs to open its doors to immigrants from other countries.
He takes a massive credibility hit on this with regards to his ability to lead on foreign affairs but accomplishes the most important issue of this administration on immigration., especially since the immigration issue here is working in tandem with the United Nations(our new Mommy and Daddy based the fake crisis Climate Accord agenda).
This has the UN written all over it and the UN cares zero about the crediblity of the US handling foreign affairs.
But we can only speculate based on what makes the most sense using critical thinking and facts that we DO know.
AHA!
"About 600,000 Afghans have fled their homes this year, seeking to escape poverty and fighting, he said. Some have sold their organs or married off their children to survive, he said."
From the United Nations:
https://www.af.undp.org/content/afghanistan/en/home/projects/CCAP-Afghanistan.html
All but three of the past 11 years have seen floods or droughts, including the country’s most severe drought ever, which lasted from 1998 to 2006. Over the next 45 years, scientists predict a decrease in rainfall and a rise in average temperatures of up to 4°C compared to 1999. Droughts are likely to be the norm by 2030, leading to land degradation and desertification.
metmike: There is a near 0% chance that the temperature will rise 4 Deg C/7 Deg. F in 45 years after only going up just over 1 deg in 100 years.
Drought is part of the normal weather for much of this country. Doesn't that extreme drought 2 decades ago tell you something?
The increase in CO2 is actually the best thing that can happen to them but thats a different topic and the people of Afghanistan are truly suffering(partly from natural drought) and partly from...............it's Afghanistan! There are dozens of countries, with people JUST LIKE IT but with other problems around the world.
Deserts greening up from rising CO2
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/#70805
I think this entire situation is being controlled by the UN and their main objective is the get climate refugees into other countries(especially the US) under the new umbrella of political refugees.
Earlier in this thread, there was a nice analysis by Ron Paul. After reading it again, I have to agree with everything he said, but his last paragraph, IMHO, did not quite hit target.
He described the Taliban as “the people who fought against those they viewed as occupiers and for what they viewed as their homeland.”
Of course, technically speaking, he is correct. However, making them look like “patriots”, IMHO, is missing the mark. From what I have read, there is much more to the Taliban than getting rid of an invader.
Throughout the years, the Taliban has not only been fighting the US/NATO occupiers, but also other groups of Afghans. Even today, there are still pockets of resistance in Afghanistan, where the people engage in physical battle with the Taliban.
It is Afghan against Afghan… and what they are fighting about Is not territory, but religion. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, the majority of Afghans are relatively moderate Muslims, while the Taliban are extremists, (maybe even more so than ISIS).
In a very diplomatic move, the Taliban promised to be nonviolent and respect females, when they arrived in the cities. However, the reports seem to defy these promises. Some Afghan military who surrendered to the Taliban, were executed on the spot. And there seem to be multiple reports of Taliban fighters kidnapping girls, as young as 12, to be used as sex slaves (“wives”, they call it) by their fighters. I saw one video of a screaming 15-year old that was taken away from her parents.
IMHO, the Taliban is very much like ISIS. It is an appalling thought that this group could now be recognized as the leaders of an official nation.
No doubt, the current events will now encourage radical Islamists across the globe. In their eyes, the US is no longer the force they have to reckon with.
And China is waiting on the sidelines.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/568095-afghanistans-fall-renews-terrorism-fears-for-us
metmike: I've decided there's a heck of a lot more going on here with new narratives about immigration and terrorism popping up that makes it clear that what we know is only what people that know more than us........ want us to think.
That's the way it's always been about the Middle East.....no reason to think that Washington, the UN and others suddenly were struck with a case of honesty on just this issue.
Talibanare showing their true colors. A woman is killed for not wearing a burka. IMHO, we will see ISIS –style executions coming soon.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
WH confusion…. Not sure if all US citizens will be rescued
In the meantime, many European countries (Germany, Italy, France) are sending aircraft to Afghanistan to collect their citizens. However, many of these people are spread out throughout the country, unable to travel to Kabul airport.
The WH says, Pres. Biden hasn’t spoken to any of the leaders of foreign countries, to coordinate the escape
Rumors of the WH being taken over by the Taliban are unfounded.
Thanks Gunter!
metmike: Wouldn't you know, Chris Cuomo was on last night telling his flock that it was Trump's fault.........again.