Fate of Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence

[alkyd]

The bad news, and there is always bad news, is that the car was parked in a civilian area and...sigh...the "secondary explosions" in the car and/or the house killed multiple civilians, three of whom were children according to local officials who I will assume aren't 100% Taliban terrorists. And of course, that's going to get blamed on us, and quite frankly why not, we fired the missiles into the house.

I would assume, they (the terrorists) parked the car next to a family house on purpose. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from ISIS tipped US army off on the location of the car knowing the repercussions USA would face should they fire a missile.

[Breccia]

I would assume, they (the terrorists) parked the car next to a family house on purpose.

I can't help but agree.

But just because the villain takes a hostage doesn't make it okay to shoot the hostage. Just...better than letting the villain escape and blow up 100 people.

[Corvus]

It's a tough one. Given one suicide bomber in a vest killed well over 100 people I would have hated to see the damage a car bomb would have done in the crowds at the airport.

[muto]

Probably should have sent in the Special Forces to deal with it, but who knows. Maybe it was deemed too dangerous for them to go in.

[PhaelixWW]

Probably should have sent in the Special Forces to deal with it, but who knows. Maybe it was deemed too dangerous for them to go in.

Someone's been watching too many Chuck Norris movies.

[Gaidax]

Probably should have sent in the Special Forces to deal with it, but who knows. Maybe it was deemed too dangerous for them to go in.

Taking out these assholes with a drone is one and only correct decision.

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Someone's been watching too many Chuck Norris movies.

What do you mean? Don't they have these huge loudly beeping digital clock things that count down with red and blue wire attached that you can disarm by cutting the blue wire?

[Azadina]

Taking out these assholes with a drone is one and only correct decision.

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What do you mean? Don't they have these huge loudly beeping digital clock things that count down with red and blue wire attached that you can disarm by cutting the blue wire?

Reminds me of a Stargate episode where the nuke they were disarming had 5 yellow wires.

[Shadowferal]

No no no!
It's the red wire...or was it the black? aw...shi..

[arandomuser]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/30/asia/...hnk/index.html 2 rocket attacks on airport

and 9 family members including six children in our drone strike
well we didnt the secondary explosion from the car bomb explosives did
and as others have pointed out that car bomb was going for the crowds at the airport if a suicide vest killed over 170 people, it was the right call
hopefully the c-rams got all of the rockets

[Themius]

Imagine how much of this could have been prevented if we accepted osama being turned over before 9/11 or after it. They offered to multiple times. But nah let’s waste trillions and end to worse off instead.

[Gaidax]

Imagine how much of this could have been prevented if we accepted osama being turned over before 9/11 or after it. They offered to multiple times. But nah let’s waste trillions and end to worse off instead.

No, I think it's important to show to the whole world how dire are the consequences of something like what happened in 9/11 to discourage others from hosting something like Al Qaeda or whatever other such bullshit comes into future. The costs should be real for those who cover them and they were as they should have been.

That US consequentially fucked it up does not mean that initial decision on this was wrong.

[Themius]

No, I think it's important to show to the whole world how dire are the consequences of something like what happened in 9/11 to discourage others from hosting something like Al Qaeda or whatever other such bullshit comes into future. The costs should be real for those who cover them and they were as they should have been.

That US consequentially fucked it up does not mean that initial decision on this was wrong.

The Taliban went from a weak group ready to give up and surrender multiple times to now stronger than they were after 9/11 and controlling Afghanistan.

by the way most of the people who did it were Saudis, Osama is Saudi. Under trump administration we learned of connections to Saudi officials to 9/11 and who do we sell all those weapons to?

You really don't know anything about this issue do you?

We went to war because it was profitable for some private companies and war is our industry...

[Gaidax]

You really don't know anything about this issue do you?

A. Hilarious
B. Thus "That US consequentially fucked it up does not mean that initial decision on this was wrong."

[Breccia]

Imagine how much of this could have been prevented if we accepted osama being turned over before 9/11 or after it. They offered to multiple times.

Before 9/11:

The Taliban government in Afghanistan offered to present Osama bin Laden for a trial long before the attacks of September 11, 2001, but the US government showed no interest, according to a senior aide to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Taliban’s last foreign minister, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that his government had made several proposals to the United States to present the al-Qaeda leader, considered the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, for trial for his involvement in plots targeting US facilities during the 1990s.

“Even before the [9/11] attacks, our Islamic Emirate had tried through various proposals to resolve the Osama issue. One such proposal was to set up a three-nation court, or something under the supervision of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference [OIC],” Muttawakil said.

“But the US showed no interest in it. They kept demanding we hand him over, but we had no relations with the US, no agreement of any sort. They did not recognise our government.”

The US did not recognise the Taliban government and had no direct diplomatic relations with the group which controlled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.

But proposals by the Taliban were relayed to the US through indirect channels such as the US embassy in Pakistan or the informal Taliban office for the UN in New York, Muttawakil said.

Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Pakistan at the time of 9/11, confirmed that such proposals had been made to US officials.

Grenier said the US considered the offers to bring in Bin Laden to trial a “ploy”.

After 9/11:

President George Bush rejected as "non-negotiable" an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over." He added, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty". In Jalalabad, deputy prime minister Haji Abdul Kabir - the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime - told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but added: "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country".

The offer came a day after the Taliban's supreme leader rebuffed Bush's "second chance" for the Islamic militia to surrender Bin Laden to the US.

Mullah Mohammed Omar said there was no move to "hand anyone over".

Taliban 'ready to discuss' Bin Laden handover if bombing halts
The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.

Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added.

But it would have to be a state that would never "come under pressure from the United States", he said.

Both options had something in common: we would have had to recognize the Taliban as an official government, or close enough at least. Which Clinton didn't, and W didn't. Which Trump then did. And Biden is now doing. So, yeah, our priorities changed over time.

So yes, with the benefit of hindsight, either Clinton or W could have done this. At the time, whoever did would have, well, negotiated with terrorists and also basically forfeit the ability to try bin Laden for his crimes. At the time, such a concession was likely deemed unacceptable. At the time, it was likely considered showing the world the wrong message.

I won't further comment on the pre-9/11 issue because I don't know how I would have reacted at the time. I don't know if I would have approved or not. He wasn't exactly a household name in 1999.

I will say, like the vast majority of Americans, after 9/11 the US wanted both justice and vengeance for the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. The Taliban, again not a government, refused to hand him over. There was only one response to that.

And I approved then like I do now.

But...then we overstayed our welcome. Which was the real problem. Explaining in great detail to the Taliban how the US feels about harboring terrorists with kilotons of punctuation was one thing, taking the country for ourselves was another. That was the decision that led to the waste of not just trillions but countless lives on every side.

So it's not so much about "if we had accepted their highly-conditional handoff". Yes, if we had for whatever reason, we wouldn't have occupied the country, and like you said avoided years upon years of misery and death. You're 100% right about that. But staying wasn't a requirement. The US has invaded plenty of countries to kill terrorists or people we just plain don't like. In a lot of cases, we did it covertly and/or just left afterwards. Remember the first Iraq War?

So I'll disagree with you on "could have been prevented if we accepted" not because it's false, it most certainly isn't, it would have prevented this decades-long fiasco and the uncounted thousands of deaths that followed. I just disagree that the handoff was the turning point. I play my share of RPGs and in them, if you kill someone you get to take their stuff. I think Yahtzee called that the International Law of Fuck You or something. But those are just games. By December we'd made our point horrifyingly clear. We didn't need to stick around, rooting through Afghanistan's pockets for trousers and breakfast cereal. We could have strolled out of the country, chugging a Coors Light and flipping the bird behind us, and said "and DON'T make me come back and explain it again". It might have been controversial, but the smoldering craters and bullet-ridden bodies certainly wouldn't have been less visible.

I dunno. Looking back on it, there were plenty of exits before the collapsed bridge. Any of them would be better than driving off the edge.

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We went to war because it was profitable for some private companies and war is our industry...

I mean...I'd find it hard to prove this false, also.

Money should not have been the reason for occupation. Quite frankly, I'm not sure there should have been any reason for occupation.

[Themius]

Before 9/11:



After 9/11:



Both options had something in common: we would have had to recognize the Taliban as an official government, or close enough at least. Which Clinton didn't, and W didn't. Which Trump then did. And Biden is now doing. So, yeah, our priorities changed over time.

So yes, with the benefit of hindsight, either Clinton or W could have done this. At the time, whoever did would have, well, negotiated with terrorists and also basically forfeit the ability to try bin Laden for his crimes. At the time, such a concession was likely deemed unacceptable. At the time, it was likely considered showing the world the wrong message.

I won't further comment on the pre-9/11 issue because I don't know how I would have reacted at the time. I don't know if I would have approved or not. He wasn't exactly a household name in 1999.

I will say, like the vast majority of Americans, after 9/11 the US wanted both justice and vengeance for the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. The Taliban, again not a government, refused to hand him over. There was only one response to that.

And I approved then like I do now.

But...then we overstayed our welcome. Which was the real problem. Explaining in great detail to the Taliban how the US feels about harboring terrorists with kilotons of punctuation was one thing, taking the country for ourselves was another. That was the decision that led to the waste of not just trillions but countless lives on every side.

So it's not so much about "if we had accepted their highly-conditional handoff". Yes, if we had for whatever reason, we wouldn't have occupied the country, and like you said avoided years upon years of misery and death. You're 100% right about that. But staying wasn't a requirement. The US has invaded plenty of countries to kill terrorists or people we just plain don't like. In a lot of cases, we did it covertly and/or just left afterwards. Remember the first Iraq War?

So I'll disagree with you on "could have been prevented if we accepted" not because it's false, it most certainly isn't, it would have prevented this decades-long fiasco and the uncounted thousands of deaths that followed. I just disagree that the handoff was the turning point. I play my share of RPGs and in them, if you kill someone you get to take their stuff. I think Yahtzee called that the International Law of Fuck You or something. But those are just games. By December we'd made our point horrifyingly clear. We didn't need to stick around, rooting through Afghanistan's pockets for trousers and breakfast cereal. We could have strolled out of the country, chugging a Coors Light and flipping the bird behind us, and said "and DON'T make me come back and explain it again". It might have been controversial, but the smoldering craters and bullet-ridden bodies certainly wouldn't have been less visible.

I dunno. Looking back on it, there were plenty of exits before the collapsed bridge. Any of them would be better than driving off the edge.

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I mean...I'd find it hard to prove this false, also.

Money should not have been the reason for occupation. Quite frankly, I'm not sure there should have been any reason for occupation.

You approve then like you do now? Approve what? They killed thousands of Americans in retaliation for our work in the Middle East that had already been killing thousands of civilians. We then go to war and kill tens of thousands of civilians and our presence there accordingto our own CIA has created more terror groups and made it less safe What the fuck is there to approve of? What's with this big dick military dick swinging? That is precisely what made us such a huge fucking target to begin with. For fuck sakes many people IN THAT REGION DON'T KNOW ABOUT 9/11 and state their reasoning to fight against the USA as the fact they're occupying and killing people.

And let us remember that it was the Saudi's who did 9/11.. mostly Saudi hijackers, Osama himself from a wealthy Saudi family. The news we learned under trump that there were connections from 9/11 to high ranking Saudi officials so shouldn't we be bombing Saudi Arabia then?

We went to Afghanistan, bombed schools and had kill squads, attacked Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands, because of Saudi Arabia... who we sell weapons to... so they can commit genocide in Yemen.

[Breccia]

You approve then like you do now? Approve what?

I approve now like I approved then of striking the Taliban for harboring bin Laden and refusing to turn him over to the US. The 9/11 attacks were massive and the Taliban were defending the person who made them happen. Allowing such a defense to happen was not something the US was going to accept. So we went in heavy and we went in hard to remind the world what such an attack means to us.

I approved of that. And I still do.

Your point about the Saudis is not lost. Your point about how much the US has fucked over the region beforehand making things worse not better and how it would have been continuing the cycle of revenge violence is not lost. I'm not defending either of those. Dozens, hundreds of things leading up to 9/11 could and should have played out differently. I won't even pretend to argue that.

And I 100% won't defend the occupation. Or, most occupations, I guess.

Everyone has limits to what they'll accept. 9/11 crossed mine. 9/11 crossed most Americans'. It was a special case.

[Themius]

I approve now like I approved then of striking the Taliban for harboring bin Laden and refusing to turn him over to the US. The 9/11 attacks were massive and the Taliban were defending the person who made them happen. Allowing such a defense to happen was not something the US was going to accept. So we went in heavy and we went in hard to remind the world what such an attack means to us.

I approved of that. And I still do.

Your point about the Saudis is not lost. Your point about how much the US has fucked over the region beforehand making things worse not better and how it would have been continuing the cycle of revenge violence is not lost. I'm not defending either of those. Dozens, hundreds of things leading up to 9/11 could and should have played out differently. I won't even pretend to argue that.

And I 100% won't defend the occupation. Or, most occupations, I guess.

Everyone has limits to what they'll accept. 9/11 crossed mine. 9/11 crossed most Americans'. It was a special case.

I grew up in New York. I have memories of visiting the towers and a lot of family friends and just people I know have lost people in those attacks.

What you’re saying is wrong. Attacking an entire country for harbouring a guy they said they’d turn over MULTIPLE times on the condition the USA stop drone strikes which kill tons of civilians anyway. That isn’t a radical ask it’s actually pretty fucking basic.

[Milchshake]

The amount of retconning on both sides is getting kinda ridiculous.

Pretty soon it will be, "Letting go of Bagram is a classic mistake. If Alexander the Great had held onto Bagram, everyone in the Golden Crescent would be speaking Macedonian now!"

Also, "I played Afghanistan this one time in Diplomacy, so the Taliban could have totally been a rational state."

Gamer brain meets the Blob, a comedy.

[Themius]

The amount of retconning on both sides is getting kinda ridiculous.

Pretty soon it will be, "Letting go of Bagram is a classic mistake. If Alexander the Great had held onto Bagram, everyone in the Golden Crescent would be speaking Macedonian now!"

Also, "I played Afghanistan this one time in Diplomacy, so the Taliban could have totally been a rational state."

Gamer brain meets the Blob, a comedy.

Retconning? You know there are critiques from the early 00s over this right? I guess when people speak in 2005 on issues of 2005 that's "retconning"

I don't get your "whip me establishment daddy" attitude.

[Breccia]

That isn’t a radical ask it’s actually pretty fucking basic.

Again, the issue is "turned over to whom".

Before 9/11 turning him over to a third party was apparently just not acceptable, because we'd be negotiating with terrorists. That'll be a grey area forever, now that we are negotiating with terrorists. Also the whole "he hadn't caused 9/11 yet" muddies the waters.

After 9/11, as I quoted, it wasn't just "if you stop bombing". It was "if you stop bombing, but also let us decide who gets the guy who murdered thousands of Americans". To me, that's not a grey area. They knew bin Laden murdered thousands of Americans and they were still using him as a bargaining chip.

No. 9/11 was special, 9/11 was different. They picked exactly the wrong time to fuck with us.

And I will not accept "it's our fault for not taking the trade sooner" as an excuse for the Taliban harboring a mass murderer of that level. If a friend of yours steals a car and wants to hide out at your place till the heat dies down, you're harboring a thief. If, while hiding, he knifes an old lady to death, now you're harboring a murderer. The rules change. You can say "we should have taken the first offer" all you want, you're probably right. But that doesn't excuse the Taliban for harboring him after. They knew who he was, they knew what he did, shielding him from us was unacceptable.

The point about civilians being killed in the crossfire is also taken. I will defend there needed to be a large, public, unmistakable response. I will not defend haphazardly killing anything that moves.