Afghan Conflict: “We Will Conquer Iran Soon” -Taliban

[Gallia-]

There is a parallel universe where the US stayed until 2041 and in that parallel universe there are exactly the same articles about the Taliban capturing Kandahar and what not, identical save for a single character: a 4 instead of a 2, 2041 instead of 2021.

And in another parallel universe, the Taliban would be fucking dead, al-Qaeda dead, Osama bin Laden dead, and people could finally move on from their enforced primativism, their brutalities, their fuckups... yes, that would've been golden.

Yes, I suppose in another parallel universe, the United States would do as Rome did to Carthage or something. That's about what you'd need to change Afghanistan on such a deep level.

But that would be a bit worse than the Taliban, I'd think.

[Picairn]

All of these things, with the exception of theocracy, were also done by the Communists. And the British aligned Kingdom. The United States no doubt had good intentions, obviously, which is...admirable, to put it politely. It simply had no way to turn those intentions into reality, and it tried very hard to do so, with a lot of bombs and money and time spent on a fruitless effort.

There were actual progress despite many obstacles and flaws of the US plan. Women were getting employment and education again, and an entire generation was raised on democratic, secular ideals. They are the same ones fleeing Afghanistan today. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/worl ... liban.html

It's not "nihilistic". It's a fact.

Spoken like a true nihilist. "It's a fact and we should accept it and do nothing".

You think it not ought to be right for women to be raped and beaten in Afghanistan. This is a admirable and laudable thing to believe. It's not the case in Afghanistan, of course. Women are beaten, raped, and killed every day there. This hasn't changed in 20 years of US occupation. It will not change in another 20 years. It's not really right for a colonizer with a notoriously poor record at colonizing to show up and decide it wants to play Lego, give up halfway, and not even have the common decency to just make the entire colony an extraction engine for pulling rocks out of the ground.

More nihilistic handwaving. How does the failure of the US to reform Afghanistan and the disgusting "fact" of women being killed and raped daily make Taliban atrocities any more right? You are desperately trying to downplay Taliban atrocities as mere "aesthetics" by LARPing as a pragmatist but fails and looks like a depraved psychopath instead.

Naturally.

Yep.

Yes, for Afghanistan.

Definitely not for Afghanistan women and Hazara civilians lol.

They never stopped. Even if Afghanistan's government wasn't collapsing, everyone would still be beating their wives or whatever.

Lol women were actually getting proper jobs and education before the Taliban reverses it. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 021-08-13/

Afghan men would disagree.

I'm sure that these "Afghan men" of yours only include Pashtuns, not Hazaras.

Hegel taints even dialectical materialism so I'm one to talk, then again Marx and Engels (my ancestors) smile upon me because I've moved beyond Hegelian discourse and strict dialectical materialism into post-Khrushchev Soviet Leninism. Political "progression" does not exist. It is an illusion, as all "progress" is. All politics and forms of government devolve to the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural conditions of the geography being discussed within a given temporal realm. These are specific to the times, geographies, and unique makeups of the cultures, economies, and distinct social-political entities interacting within them. You can analogize but these are imprecise at best, and bad for novel problems, which appear from time to time with no apparent pattern.

Look, I don't want to hear your nonsensical esoteric theory of the illusion of progress. The sociopolitical, economic, and cultural conditions change over time, which precipitate political change. We humans have progressed from the primitive Stone Age tribes all the way to modern republics and constitutional monarchies, with vastly different technological, geopolitical and cultural makeup. Treating history as static blocks of different periods and systems is to ignore the underlying transitions which created the conditions for new systems of government.

Afghanistan is not a novel problem, though.

A more precise answer is that: In the current conditions that define current Afghan sociocultural development, the Taliban are the best fit option for governance of the people.

I would dispute that oppression of women and senseless massacres of minorities are "the best fit option". Was that necessary? No. Was it useful? No. What good has ever come from murder and sexism?

Women's rights, should they ever come to Afghanistan, will not to them from the barrel of a infidel's rifle. It is possible that Islam may become more lenient in the future in its prosecution of adultery, although I'm not some legal expert on ancient religious laws, so I can't say. It's a subject I have no particular interest in as I am card carrying infidel.

"May be more lenient"? Please, the Taliban has done this since the 90s. They banned all women from employment in September 1996. In December of that year 225 women were lashed in the backs and legs for violating the Taliban's dress code. Didn't change a bit since the American invasion.

Are there better options? Possibly, but the Taliban seem to be the only ones big enough to make a difference that they're swaying entire warlords to turn over.

Warlords that will be protected and ensured safety. Shame that women and the Hazaras are not afforded such security.

Is "Western democracy modeled on the northeastern United States" an option at all? Not in the slightest.

It isn't, but to think the Taliban is a better option is total delusion.

Ah yes. To keep Iraq from having a civil war, we must keep it unified on this map, which is the map which is causing an civil war, as opposed to chop it up like the civil war is currently doing, because the civil war is attempting to break the map up into separate states. Yes. This will end the civil war. Not prolong it or anything. Or result in a tenuous and dangerous situation where conflict might erupt were it not for all sides being too weak to bully each other and simply strong enough to stop the other sides from doing anything.

Since when has partition along sectarian lines accomplished anything but more blood and violence?

It's simple!

Switzerland works because it divides ethnic groups by clear divisions of borders, which allows for cantons to rule themselves and police their own people.

Everyone else failed because they tried to colonize various ethnic groups and these groups disliked that so they protested by shooting the government until it was dead. Then they made their own borders.

Which one do you think would most likely work?

Iraq or Afghanistan as confederations would work, like Switzerland. Alternatively you could carve them up into separate states. One requires redrawing global maps. The other requires redrawing internal maps. Both require massive amounts of population transfer, although America isn't really a stranger to moving huge boatloads of people into random new villages 500 miles away or anything.

Confederation doesn't require population transfer, unless you divide the country along sectarian lines.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

It was kept right next to Saddam's WMD's, I suppose? American intelligence swears on the Constitution itself, I'm sure

Do I like Saddam? No.
Did Iraq have WMDs? No.
Was the war wrong? Yes.
Was Bin Laden a hypocritical terrorist? Yes.
Am I glad he died? Also yes.

This is where I differ with you, we secularists believe in fair trial, you political Islamists enjoy someone's death. Osama bin Laden is an agent in the american service and i don't believe he was killed democrat uncle why the united states didn't take Laden to court. The death penalty is a crime against humanity !

Canada to accept 20,000 Afghan refugees, prioritizing those primed to be target by the taliban: women's rights leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, religious minorities, LGBT+ Afghans, and the families of already resettled interpreters

It's time for Afghan social democrats to get a little radical.

[The Huskar Social Union]

And then Biden withdrew the troops. He dìd this shit; he should fucking own it.

You want the US to spend another 20 years at war?

A war that mind you, would've ended in 2001/02 if Cheney and his puppet Bush weren't Cheney and Bush, as the Taliban did surrender.

Did the Taliban actually surrender early in the war? I didnt know that honestly.

[Diahon]

You want the US to spend another 20 years at war?

A war that mind you, would've ended in 2001/02 if Cheney and his puppet Bush weren't Cheney and Bush, as the Taliban did surrender.

Did the Taliban actually surrender early in the war? I didnt know that honestly.

no, those fuckers retreated to the mountains and escaped into pakistan, to regroup and attack from there over the next two decades

[New haven america]

You want the US to spend another 20 years at war?

A war that mind you, would've ended in 2001/02 if Cheney and his puppet Bush weren't Cheney and Bush, as the Taliban did surrender.

Did the Taliban actually surrender early in the war? I didnt know that honestly.

Yes.

Bush and Cheney turned them down because "We don't negotiate with terrorists", even if those are terms of surrender. (They even had a boating trip the weekend of the news with banners saying "We won!" even though they had absolutely no plans of ending the war anytime soon) A similar deal happened in Iraq, the country was taken over and sedated in ~3 months, but Cheney wanted oil money.

I had a funny joke here but the mods would've called it political nicknaming. Shame.

[Gallia-]

"It's a fact and we should accept it and do nothing".

I'd suggest you take Hume's advice and talk in ises not oughts.

Of course, had the United States done that in the first place, there would never have been an Afghanistan War in the first place. At worst it would be a Punitive Expedition, Central Command.

Definitely not for Afghanistan women and Hazara civilians lol.

Yes, unfortunately they were born in a majority Pashtun country. There's not really much you can do about that, besides killing a lot of people.

Lol women were actually getting proper jobs and education before the Taliban reverses it.

Yes, while they were also being raped. Now they will likely continue being raped, but not have jobs. But [url]at least children will be raped less[/url], perhaps.

Sorry if I assumed you knew anything about Afghanistan.

I'm sure that these "Afghan men" of yours only include Pashtuns, not Hazaras.

Yes, Afghanistan will go back to things it was doing already, i.e. emasculating Hazaras and beating or raping their wives. This never stopped. Why did you think it did?

Look, I don't want to hear your nonsensical esoteric theory of the illusion of progress.

That's obvious. You contradicted yourself in that weird paragraph though.

I would dispute that oppression of women and senseless massacres of minorities are "the best fit option".

The fact that it's likely going to occur would cast doubt on your dispute. You might think it's unpleasant or distasteful, but you cannot argue with the fact that it is the best fit. This is self-evident by the fact that it exists.

"May be more lenient"? Please, the Taliban has done this since the 90s.

You misunderstand. I mean Islam as a religious belief system and its associated judicial schools.

Shame that women and the Hazaras are not afforded such security.

If they can't organize their own warlord groups then why would they be protected by warlords? As I said, Afghanistan is a rough place to be a woman, and a lost Mongolian.

It isn't, but to think the Taliban is a better option is total delusion.

Stop attaching normative words and statements retroactively applied to my quotes lol. It isn't "better". It isn't "worse". It simply is. That's all. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan simply is. The Taliban can be fairly well reasoned with, as well, since they act like a legitimate government in the European sense. They make deals. They listen to people of different beliefs. They are willing to agree to terms and conditions. They believe in arbitration and accept negotiation with infidels.

These are important factors to recognize. The Taliban are not ISIS, so bombing them does not work, and even if they were ISIS, there would still not be an Assad to stop them. The Taliban, however, may become a useful ally against ISIS. Especially since the current Afghan (and Iraqi) governments are too effete and weak to do anything against Al-Qaeda's disowned edgelords, let alone a more powerful entity.

Your preposterous line of thinking taken to its conclusion would probably result in an ISIS caliphate spanning from the Levant to Afghanistan and a little bit into North Africa, if taken to its conclusion, simply because such aesthetic preferences would result in governments with weak popular support and constant destruction of popular moderates (relative to ISIS, such as the Taliban) or powerful anti-ISIS elements (such as Assad or Saddam) might end up being bombed out of relatively minor disagreements rather than any practical reason. Lol.

You're gonna need to step back and contemplate a United Front of the United States, Russia, PRC, Taliban, and Assad against the ISISes of the world. Any highfalutin reasoning beyond that is a distraction, at the end of the day.

Since when has partition along sectarian lines accomplished anything but more blood and violence?

Gee I wonder. It's almost as if the violence is an expression of lack of clear borders at the physical boundaries of ethnic groups or something. It's almost as if the purpose of the violence is to attract attention that someone needs to draw a line, build a barrier, or establish a cordon to keep some groups from fighting.

Confederation doesn't require population transfer, unless you divide the country along sectarian lines.

It would likely require population transfer since that is the most expeditious solution (the Swiss Confederacy only took hundreds of years to make) although Switzerland tends to draw new borders periodically.

You want the US to spend another 20 years at war?

A war that mind you, would've ended in 2001/02 if Cheney and his puppet Bush weren't Cheney and Bush, as the Taliban did surrender.

Did the Taliban actually surrender early in the war? I didnt know that honestly.

They never surrendered, as that would imply that they stopped fighting, which they clearly haven't. On October 14th they wanted "evidence" but Mohammad Omar said no, and he was considered the biggest strongman in the country, which the US obviously rejected. On October 16th, the Taliban offered to go to international arbitration with Pakistan as the intermediary, unconditionally, to hand over bin Laden to the ISI, if the US were to stop bombing them. The US said no sometime the next morning and invaded with ground troops a couple weeks later.

Funnily enough Mohammad Omar agreed to hand bin Laden over to the ISI but Infinite Reach happened and he said no.

It's sort of a back and forth that happened for a few years. The Taliban would offer bin Laden for 1994. America would do something. The Taliban would say no. Except 2001 was the first time they were seriously challenged and they got kinda desperate. Charitably speaking the US could be forgiven for not falling for the Mullah who cried uncle, but more realistically there was never any intent to make Afghanistan anything more than a social experiment.

[Jeriga]

There is a parallel universe where the US stayed until 2041 and in that parallel universe there are exactly the same articles about the Taliban capturing Kandahar and what not, identical save for a single character: a 4 instead of a 2, 2041 instead of 2021.

And in another parallel universe, the Taliban would be fucking dead, al-Qaeda dead, Osama bin Laden dead, and people could finally move on from their enforced primativism, their brutalities, their fuckups... yes, that would've been golden.

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

[Jeriga]

Do I like Saddam? No.
Did Iraq have WMDs? No.
Was the war wrong? Yes.
Was Bin Laden a hypocritical terrorist? Yes.
Am I glad he died? Also yes.

This is where I differ with you, we secularists believe in fair trial, you political Islamists enjoy someone's death. Osama bin Laden is an agent in the american service and i don't believe he was killed democrat uncle why the united states didn't take Laden to court. The death penalty is a crime against humanity !

Canada to accept 20,000 Afghan refugees, prioritizing those primed to be target by the taliban: women's rights leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, religious minorities, LGBT+ Afghans, and the families of already resettled interpreters

It's time for Afghan social democrats to get a little radical.

Not when you kill 2000 people

[Diahon]

And in another parallel universe, the Taliban would be fucking dead, al-Qaeda dead, Osama bin Laden dead, and people could finally move on from their enforced primativism, their brutalities, their fuckups... yes, that would've been golden.

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

the vietnamese, by and large, wanted to be free of foreign domination, and ho chi minh happened to dovetail that desire intimately to his own cause

that is not the case here

the taliban want another try at turning back the clock
the chinese want resources and a chance to neuter a potential backdoor to uyghur radicalism
the pakistanis want a fuckup for fuckedup reasons

the afghans may be conservatives, they may want the americans off their backs, but they're not insane -- they know what the taliban want, and it ain't good governance

[Kowani]

President Ghani says 'remobilization of armed forces top priority'
he's also not resigning and...says "the country is in serious danger of instability,"


i see why this man might lack popular support

[Jeriga]

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

the vietnamese, by and large, wanted to be free of foreign domination, and ho chi minh happened to dovetail that desire intimately to his own cause

that is not the case here

the taliban want another try at turning back the clock
the chinese want resources and a chance to neuter a potential backdoor to uyghur radicalism
the pakistanis want a fuckup for fuckedup reasons

the afghans may be conservatives, they may want the americans off their backs, but they're not insane -- they know what the taliban want, and it ain't good governance

What the Afghan people want is a stable nation and to be left alone. They won't get that with the taliban, but they weren't getting that with us either. We killed 250,000 civilians and suffered 23000 casualties in the war. What else do you want us to do?

[Diahon]

It is fucking disgusting that you guys are making excuses to fuck off and find your way out of another 9/11 through fucking sourgraping. Vast swathes of Afghanistan falling to these motherfuckers again? Why, the people must really want a nation where even fucking paper was endlessly tested for its compatability with Islamic principles! What else can explain things?

[Jeriga]

It is fucking disgusting that you guys are making excuses to fuck off and find your way out of another 9/11 through fucking sourgraping. Vast swathes of Afghanistan falling to these motherfuckers again? Why, the people must really want a nation where even fucking paper was endlessly tested for its compatability with Islamic principles! What else can explain things?

Are you seriously arguing that we should continue the war for another 20 years? You're delusional if you think our mission there would ever be accomplished.

[Gallia-]

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

the vietnamese, by and large, wanted to be free of foreign domination, and ho chi minh happened to dovetail that desire intimately to his own cause

that is not the case here

the taliban want another try at turning back the clock
the chinese want resources and a chance to neuter a potential backdoor to uyghur radicalism
the pakistanis want a fuckup for fuckedup reasons

the afghans may be conservatives, they may want the americans off their backs, but they're not insane -- they know what the taliban want, and it ain't good governance

Yes the Taliban want to turn the clock back...to 1997.

Given how fast the Taliban have conquered the country it's hard to believe that Pashtuns would disagree. You should stop projecting what you think the Taliban are versus what they actually are. They might be pretty bad for Afghan women and sporadic ethnic minorities, but none of those people have any power in a Pashtun dominated society, so it's a non-issue for them. For Pashtuns, I mean. It's a big issue for a bunch of minorities and stuff, but the Pashtuns would probably just start killing them if they decided to stake out any power for themselves in a pluralistic democratic society. Wouldn't be the first time.

The Taliban had a wildly more refined method of sinecuring the Uzbeks and Tajiks instead. That might continue for the ethnic minorities, if only to keep up the fiction that they're not returning to the Pashtun status quo ante.

What else can explain things?

That the current American backed Afghan government is not very popular or supported by the majority of the Pashtun population, who constitute the political power base in real terms (primarily the village headmen), and is seen to only empower ethnic minorities, women, and child rapists. This is acknowledged by the United States, and the last one is pretty wild considering US troops were explicitly told to ignore child rapists to "avoid shaming" the government, given how much worse rape in general is considered as a crime in the West than in Afghanistan by its people. Oof.

Unpopular governments with weak support are easily defeated because their soldiers do not fight, their leaders sell their allocated rifles and ammunition, and their rosters are full of non-existent troops who long since deserted but continue to collect paychecks funneled into the commander's wallet. It's not very complex. The KMT suffered the same problems fighting Mao's communist armies in China, and the ARVN was equally corrupt and riddled with bandits. America has a pretty solid history of supporting the "worse guys" in Asian conflicts, in terms of corruption, nepotism, and general banditry.

Afghanistan is no different in that regard. Ideals are nice to have, but they usually mean nothing, and this is especially true in Afghanistan's case. Realistically very little changed for Afghan women besides some schools for girls and a few jobs. Women still get raped, children are being raped, and acid attacks are happening. Honor killings are still happening. They never stopped, but there's no real apparatus or incentive to control them as long as the US is around, because it's afraid of its weak government being exposed. The coverups are more of a reward to police chiefs who rape young boys or girls these days, rather than something done in secret for fear of retaliation.

[Diahon]

the vietnamese, by and large, wanted to be free of foreign domination, and ho chi minh happened to dovetail that desire intimately to his own cause

that is not the case here

the taliban want another try at turning back the clock
the chinese want resources and a chance to neuter a potential backdoor to uyghur radicalism
the pakistanis want a fuckup for fuckedup reasons

the afghans may be conservatives, they may want the americans off their backs, but they're not insane -- they know what the taliban want, and it ain't good governance

What the Afghan people want is a stable nation and to be left alone. They won't get that with the taliban, but they weren't getting that with us either. We killed 250,000 civilians and suffered 23000 casualties in the war. What else do you want us to do?

A stable base of operations to take a stab at another 9/11, to test, plus a second and third one, to taste, you mean.

Speaking of wanting to be left the fuck alone -- those soldiers that surrendered to the Taliban? They wanted to be left alone -- and they were left alone, after those fucking thugs pumped them full of fucking lead! And what about those women who just wanted to do their jobs, earn their keep, and provide for their family? They wanted to be left alone too! And what did they get? They were shooed out of their workplaces, escorted to their homes, told not to come back to work, and have a male member of the family do their work for them if possible. Then they were left alone! But I bet that if they tried to come back, they'll be left alone -- after a rape, perhaps, or target practice, or both!

And by what criteria do these murderous motherfuckers qualify as members of the Afghan nation, anyway? That they were born there? That they really really want Afghanistan to be their rollicking torture chamber again, after two decades of getting holed up in Pakistan? I'm liberal as fuck when it comes to giving citizenship, BUT I DON'T GIVE THAT SHIT TO MURDEROUS TERRORISTS!

[The Winter Sun]

What the Afghan people want is a stable nation and to be left alone. They won't get that with the taliban, but they weren't getting that with us either. We killed 250,000 civilians and suffered 23000 casualties in the war. What else do you want us to do?

A stable base of operations to take a stab at another 9/11, to test, plus a second and third one, to taste, you mean.

Speaking of wanting to be left the fuck alone -- those soldiers that surrendered to the Taliban? They wanted to be left alone -- and they were left alone, after those fucking thugs pumped them full of fucking lead! And what about those women who just wanted to do their jobs, earn their keep, and provide for their family? They wanted to be left alone too! And what did they get? They were shooed out of their workplaces, escorted to their homes, told not to come back to work, and have a male member of the family do their work for them if possible. Then they were left alone! But I bet that if they tried to come back, they'll be left alone -- after a rape, perhaps, or target practice, or both!

And by what criteria do these murderous motherfuckers qualify as members of the Afghan nation, anyway? That they were born there? That they really really want Afghanistan to be their rollicking torture chamber again, after two decades of getting holed up in Pakistan? I'm liberal as fuck when it comes to giving citizenship, BUT I DON'T GIVE THAT SHIT TO MURDEROUS TERRORISTS!

Afghanistan is a lost cause.

[Gallia-]

A stable base of operations to take a stab at another 9/11

The Taliban were just the only people willing to offer bin Laden a cot after his family kicked him out of his fabulous manor estate or whatever. He was basically couch surfing between warlords' cribs.

Anyway the US is strongly allied with the people who funded 9/11 lol. It literally liberated one of them from Saddam Hussein in 1991 (itself justified with a famous Big Lie).

They could easily do another 9/11 but I guess they don't have a reason to (or more likely a potential big mastermind to actually ask), and one of them is now a member of the international regulatory body that monitors monetary transactions and develops anti-laundering technologies or something anyway. So it would probably be hard without a big cash transfer from one of those not-banker guys.

[Jeriga]

What the Afghan people want is a stable nation and to be left alone. They won't get that with the taliban, but they weren't getting that with us either. We killed 250,000 civilians and suffered 23000 casualties in the war. What else do you want us to do?

A stable base of operations to take a stab at another 9/11, to test, plus a second and third one, to taste, you mean.

Speaking of wanting to be left the fuck alone -- those soldiers that surrendered to the Taliban? They wanted to be left alone -- and they were left alone, after those fucking thugs pumped them full of fucking lead! And what about those women who just wanted to do their jobs, earn their keep, and provide for their family? They wanted to be left alone too! And what did they get? They were shooed out of their workplaces, escorted to their homes, told not to come back to work, and have a male member of the family do their work for them if possible. Then they were left alone! But I bet that if they tried to come back, they'll be left alone -- after a rape, perhaps, or target practice, or both!

And by what criteria do these murderous motherfuckers qualify as members of the Afghan nation, anyway? That they were born there? That they really really want Afghanistan to be their rollicking torture chamber again, after two decades of getting holed up in Pakistan? I'm liberal as fuck when it comes to giving citizenship, BUT I DON'T GIVE THAT SHIT TO MURDEROUS TERRORISTS!

You should definitely not be trying to hold the spectre of 9/11 over us.

We aren't giving them anything. They waited us out. We lost the war.

What happens now is up to the afghan people.

[Picairn]

I'd suggest you take Hume's advice and talk in ises not oughts.

I suggest you actually stop masquerading the lazy nihilistic handwaving as a valid philosophical thought. What's next, more poorly-thought-out pseudo-philosophical notions? Bizarre revision of history?

Of course, had the United States done that in the first place, there would never have been an Afghanistan War in the first place. At worst it would be a Punitive Expedition, Central Command.

Going to war without a clear plan was reckless, but the Americans were demanding the culprits of 9/11 be brought to justice. We can't exactly let Osama bin Laden walk away after he killed thousands.

Yes, unfortunately they were born in a majority Pashtun country. There's not really much you can do about that, besides killing a lot of people.

Don't cut yourself on that edge. See, this is exactly your problem: thinking that the Hazaras should accept their own fate and die. Nihilistic handwaving at its finest.

Yes, while they were also being raped. Now they will likely continue being raped, but not have jobs. But [url]at least children will be raped less[/url], perhaps.

Your own article says there was demonstrable progress in helping women under the new government lol. You just shot yourself in the foot.

Sorry if I assumed you knew anything about Afghanistan.

Sorry if I assumed I could have a good-faith debate with you in the first place. Oops, I didn't.

Yes, Afghanistan will go back to things it was doing already, i.e. emasculating Hazaras and beating or raping their wives. This never stopped. Why did you think it did?

Why do you think the massacres of civilians should continue?

That's obvious. You contradicted yourself in that weird paragraph though.

Not as weird as your nonsensical "theory".

The fact that it's likely going to occur would cast doubt on your dispute. You might think it's unpleasant or distasteful, but you cannot argue with the fact that it is the best fit. This is self-evident by the fact that it exists.

This is even weirder lmao. Because atrocities are self-evident, therefore it is the best fit? Did you study at the TvTropes school of Insane Troll Logic?

You misunderstand. I mean Islam as a religious belief system and its associated judicial schools.

And how are you even sure the Taliban will embrace reforms and not stick to their own backward interpretation of Islam?

If they can't organize their own warlord groups then why would they be protected by warlords? As I said, Afghanistan is a rough place to be a woman, and a lost Mongolian.

Nihilistic handwaving and indifference isn't a valid argument, you know. It just makes you look like a psychopath.

Stop attaching normative words and statements retroactively applied to my quotes lol. It isn't "better". It isn't "worse". It simply is. That's all. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan simply is. The Taliban can be fairly well reasoned with, as well, since they act like a legitimate government in the European sense. They make deals. They listen to people of different beliefs. They are willing to agree to terms and conditions. They believe in arbitration and accept negotiation with infidels.

"Simply is" does not equal "best fit". You are contradicting your own logic, as insane as it seems.

These are important factors to recognize. The Taliban are not ISIS, so bombing them does not work,

Elaborate.

and even if they were ISIS, there would still not be an Assad to stop them.

If they behaved like ISIS the whole world would be committed to seeing their eradication. Not even the ISI could afford to support medieval terrorists.

The Taliban, however, may become a useful ally against ISIS. Especially since the current Afghan (and Iraqi) governments are too effete and weak to do anything against Al-Qaeda's disowned edgelords, let alone a more powerful entity.

Al-Qaeda also despises ISIS, yet allying with them doesn't seem like a good idea.

Your preposterous line of thinking taken to its conclusion would probably result in an ISIS caliphate spanning from the Levant to Afghanistan and a little bit into North Africa, if taken to its conclusion, simply because such aesthetic preferences would result in governments with weak popular support and constant destruction of popular moderates (relative to ISIS, such as the Taliban) or powerful anti-ISIS elements (such as Assad or Saddam) might end up being bombed out of relatively minor disagreements rather than any practical reason. Lol.

Lol. Classic slippery slope. When it comes to rational thinking, fearmongering tends to produce an opposite effect. Taliban isn't moderate compared to ISIS, merely less bad. Their record of atrocities decisively proved so, no matter how much you want to downplay it as "minor disagreements" or "aesthetics". Your nihilistic indifference to mass murder is especially concerning, often a symptom of psychopathy more than rational thought.

You're gonna need to step back and contemplate a United Front of the United States, Russia, PRC, Taliban, and Assad against the ISISes of the world. Any highfalutin reasoning beyond that is a distraction, at the end of the day.

You are gonna need to consider less fearmongering, less slippery slope, less pseudo-philosophical lectures, and more consideration for innocent civilians as well as appreciation for logic.

Gee I wonder. It's almost as if the violence is an expression of lack of clear borders at the physical boundaries of ethnic groups or something. It's almost as if the purpose of the violence is to attract attention that someone needs to draw a line, build a barrier, or establish a cordon to keep some groups from fighting.

It's not like clear borders have failed to stop sectarian violence or something, otherwise the Balkans and the Pakistani-Indian relationship wouldn't be such gigantic clusterfucks.

It would likely require population transfer since that is the most expeditious solution (the Swiss Confederacy only took hundreds of years to make) although Switzerland tends to draw new borders periodically.

Right, because nothing bad has ever happened during mass population transfers.

[Picairn]

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

The Taliban isn't even Viet Cong or the NVA. It would be more like a Chinese-backed Vietnamese faction steamrolls both sides and wins the war.

[Jeriga]

And in yet another universe, the VC would be dead, the NVA would be dead, and Vietnam would be a happy capitalist paradise free of communism!

We can't win this fight and we know that.

The Taliban isn't even Viet Cong or the NVA. It would be more like a Chinese-backed Vietnamese faction steamrolls both sides and wins the war.

The NVA was soviet backed tho

[Diahon]

A stable base of operations to take a stab at another 9/11, to test, plus a second and third one, to taste, you mean.

Speaking of wanting to be left the fuck alone -- those soldiers that surrendered to the Taliban? They wanted to be left alone -- and they were left alone, after those fucking thugs pumped them full of fucking lead! And what about those women who just wanted to do their jobs, earn their keep, and provide for their family? They wanted to be left alone too! And what did they get? They were shooed out of their workplaces, escorted to their homes, told not to come back to work, and have a male member of the family do their work for them if possible. Then they were left alone! But I bet that if they tried to come back, they'll be left alone -- after a rape, perhaps, or target practice, or both!

And by what criteria do these murderous motherfuckers qualify as members of the Afghan nation, anyway? That they were born there? That they really really want Afghanistan to be their rollicking torture chamber again, after two decades of getting holed up in Pakistan? I'm liberal as fuck when it comes to giving citizenship, BUT I DON'T GIVE THAT SHIT TO MURDEROUS TERRORISTS!

You should definitely not be trying to hold the spectre of 9/11 over us.

I would, because this is a betrayal on many fronts.

You haven't lost. You gave up. You wanted to get your own, so you banked on shitty, corrupt people to get your own, then got out as soon as you got tired of playing beat cop.

But I won't pay for your betrayal, and hopefully you won't. No, it will be the next generation who pays for it. And if there's anything we as a species are exceptional at, it's leaving it to posterity to hold the bag for us.

[Diahon]

Speaking of passing the bag, Ashraf Ghani has gone live to announce his resignation and Afghanistan's surrender to the Taliban.

As with Najibullah, so with Ghani.

Fuck around with your agreements, everyone. Hope you don't find me grieving again.

[Jeriga]

You should definitely not be trying to hold the spectre of 9/11 over us.

I would, because this is a betrayal on many fronts.

You haven't lost. You gave up. You wanted to get your own, so you banked on shitty, corrupt people to get your own, then got out as soon as you got tired of playing beat cop.

But I won't pay for your betrayal, and hopefully you won't. No, it will be the next generation who pays for it. And if there's anything we as a species are exceptional at, it's leaving it to posterity to hold the bag for us.

I agree. We've spent trillions on this war and its held us back from doing anything in our domestic situations. Your moral crusade is pointless and your vague demands impractical. This isn't a boxing match. You don't get to yell at the fighters to keep going like a coach particularly when you don't have a dog in the fight.

And trying to fear monger Americans is just dumb. 9/11 is no longer so traumatic in our memories. The wars very much are.