Fate of Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence

[PhaelixWW]

If you go to war without either total subjugation or total annihilation in mind your better of staying home.

Oh, look, another one.

Why do some people feel like the extremes are the only options, ever? Pro tip: that's the hallmark of rigid thinking, and rigid thinking makes a fragile mind.

The truth is usually somewhere between the extremes because truly binary choices are not nearly as common in real life.

[Mihalik]

After we dropped the nuclear bomb, Russia declared war on Japan, and after the 2nd one got dropped, the Emperor surrendered.

The Russians didn't declare war on Japan because we nuked Japan.

Did you honestly think they pulled up 2 million men and organized a massive pincer invasion over 3 days?

The Russian invasion was months in the works and was independent of the US nukes.

And for the roughly 7th fucking time.

The Japanese didn't take the fucking nukes seriously and were mostly only fucking concerned by getting steamrolled by the Russians who swept away the entire fucking Kwantung Army in days.

[Coals]

Oh, look, another one.

Why do some people feel like the extremes are the only options, ever? Pro tip: that's the hallmark of rigid thinking, and rigid thinking makes a fragile mind.

The truth is usually somewhere between the extremes because truly binary choices are not nearly as common in real life.

Because when you go out and kill other people regardless of if your in the moral right the situation is considered extreme.

[PhaelixWW]

Because when you go out and kill other people regardless of if your in the moral right the situation is considered extreme.

If your goal is simply "to kill other people", then yes: extremes apply, and you should either embrace it or stay home.

BUT...

...the goal of war is never simply to "kill other people".

[Magical Mudcrab]

Because when you go out and kill other people regardless of if your in the moral right the situation is considered extreme.

What? How is this a justification of what you had said? War may be an extreme action, but its use has nuance. The idea that the only way war can be effective is if you're gung-ho on genocide or enslaving the populace is silly and is the kind of thinking that, frankly, leads to extremism.

[tehdang]

Does the Afghanistan thread really have to be about relitigating the WW2 use of nuclear weapons? Historians have debated that point for longer than everybody in this thread has been alive, and you can read and watch debates from both sides at leisure elsewhere.

[Coals]

What? How is this a justification of what you had said? War may be an extreme action, but its use has nuance. The idea that the only way war can be effective is if you're gung-ho on genocide or enslaving the populace is silly and is the kind of thinking that, frankly, leads to extremism.

A war among equals with roughly the same values is of course different as yielding more or less returns daily life to the status quo for most people with added resentment of course. When the two cultures are utterly alien though one most be broken usually by colonization for their to be even the slightest possibility of peace.

[PhaelixWW]

A war among equals with roughly the same values is of course different as yielding more or less returns daily life to the status quo for most people with added resentment of course. When the two cultures are utterly alien though one most be broken usually by colonization for their to be even the slightest possibility of peace.

And yet no two human cultures are "utterly alien" to each other. There you go with your hyperbole again.

[Coals]

And yet no two human cultures are "utterly alien" to each other. There you go with your hyperbole again.

Alright, sure if you believe that.

[Diaphin]

No they wouldn't have, and didn't. They surrendered after the 2nd bomb was dropped, because they knew the third was probably going to hand on the Emperor's head.

Thats actually not true. The japanese were willing to surrender, they just wanted to do so under the condition that the Tenno wouldn't be replaced and charged for war crimes. Which the americans never were interested in doing anyway, they just wanted to look tough and squeeze an unconditional surrender out of japan so that Truman looks strong in front of the american populace. Instead of bombings, the americans just could have let it discretely slip that they totally aggree to the demands of the japanese war council but they won't do so publicly.

- - - Updated - - -

Alright, sure if you believe that.

In which way xDDD

[Ursus]

Alright, sure if you believe that.

Damn dude, you literally just joined the forums today and already got sent on a mandatory vacation, that's quite impressive. I salute you.

[PhaelixWW]

Damn dude, you literally just joined the forums today and already got sent on a mandatory vacation, that's quite impressive. I salute you.

There's no infractions, so it must be for ban-evading.

[Shadowferal]

There's no infractions, so it must be for ban-evading.

Yeah. Saw that and thought; "okay, who is this really?"

To lean away from that...the thought of going to war is "if it's worth going to war, the it should be by any means necessary." Anything else isn't war.

[beanman12345]

Damn dude, you literally just joined the forums today and already got sent on a mandatory vacation, that's quite impressive. I salute you.

Considering the half dozen clowns who were banned the last few days, and considering the account was made today, I would hope when people are responding to obvious ban evaders, they are also smart enough to be reporting them...

[jonnysensible]

looks like the taliban are starting to work their black list. so much for the 'amnesty'

[Draco-Onis]

looks like the taliban are starting to work their black list. so much for the 'amnesty'

I don't think anyone bought the whole we're a whole new Taliban thing however they can't keep the population in lockdown forever. Afghanistan will probably go back to its civil wars.

[Edge-]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...ad-to-its-fall

Interesting interview about how the failure of the US to even attempt to tackle the corruption endemic to the Afghan government may have played a significant role in recent events. Just ignoring and turning a blind eye to millions disappearing left and right, officials limiting access to contracts to their friends and family, and other significant high-level corruption doesn't really lead to any benefits for the country as a whole or the ability of the government to function.

[tehdang]

Taliban murders relatives of a German (Deutsche Welle) journalist that they can't find

BERLIN, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Taliban fighters hunting a journalist from Deutsche Welle have shot dead one member of his family and severely injured another, the German public broadcaster said, adding that three more of its journalists had had their homes raided.

The Islamist militant movement had promised it would allow free media - banned when it was last in power from 1996 to 2001 - when it gave its first news conference on Tuesday since capturing the capital Kabul.

Some Afghan journalists have also reported having been beaten and their homes raided since the Taliban seized the capital Kabul on Sunday.

https://www.reuters.com/business/med...ys-2021-08-20/

The same Taliban we've always known...

The US have finally stepped up their game, having been shamed by the UK and French governments in rescuing citizens that can't make it to the airport.

The US military used helicopters to evacuate a group of Americans from a hotel near Kabul's airport, according to a Pentagon spokesman who provided new details about the mission that was first revealed by President Joe Biden in his speech on Friday.

The 169 Americans were retrieved after another country informed US commanders that citizens had gathered at the Baron Hotel near the airport, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday evening.
Three CH-47 Chinook helicopters flew from the military side of the airport to the Baron Hotel, just off the southern side of the airport, to collect the Americans and bring them onto the field, Kirby said. He did not know if the Chinooks had flown multiple flights to bring the Americans over.
"It was a very quick, safely performed operation," Kirby said.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/20/polit...ion/index.html

Credit where credit is due.

[JohnBrown1917]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...ad-to-its-fall

Interesting interview about how the failure of the US to even attempt to tackle the corruption endemic to the Afghan government may have played a significant role in recent events. Just ignoring and turning a blind eye to millions disappearing left and right, officials limiting access to contracts to their friends and family, and other significant high-level corruption doesn't really lead to any benefits for the country as a whole or the ability of the government to function.

Oh, thats not all they turned a blind eye too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/w...e-of-boys.html

[Biglog]

Blaming Afghan corruption on the US is kind of an odd take. There does seem to be a preclusion for whatever reason for countries in that region to drift towards autocratic iron fist rule, whether through a dictator or theocracy. Assad in Syria, Qaddafi in Libya, Saddam in Iraq, the Ayattolahs in Iran, Erdogan/Ilyev, even the royal family in Saudi, etc. In fact the moderate leadership such as in Jordan is by far the exception to the rule. And in probably the most extreme example, the Afghans chose the Taliban over Democracy despite all the financial help and 20 years of security that the US gave them.

Afghanistan showed that if a people don't want democracy, it does not matter how much help financially or otherwise you give them there is no changing that. There is no nation building in a nation that does not want it. You cannot simply "try harder" as the Monday morning quarterbacks have liked to say over the past week. That is an incredibly oversimplified solution and isn't how things work.

So like southeast Asia, there needs to be a cultural understanding at a far deeper level before attempting nation building. If people in a region prefer for whatever cultural reason dictatorial/autocratic leadership that rules with an iron fist, controls what they are told and can do, wants women and children to stay "in their place" in the shadows, cuts off hands and feet for relatively minor crimes...nation building democracy is never going to work. You will find corrupt people that might say they are interested democracy long enough to line their pockets and flee to Dubai, which is exactly what happened. The cultural conservatism will pull them back to autocratic leadership like gravity.

The US honestly might have been better in Iraq and Afghanistan following a similar model and instead of trying to form democratic governments that wasted US money and were a fraud, finding a despotic dictator that doesn't support terrorism but rules the country with public executions and imprisoning anyone that doesn't align. Maybe culturally the people just like the stability from it. Whatever the cause, the preference for that form of leadership is a geopolitical fact that is difficult to deny and needs to be in bold underlined when any pondering of regime change is considered. It should be a warning of how difficult it really is to help move a country from autocratic rule to democracy.