CIA death squads no longer sexy
Add to this that trumps totally uncoordinated pull out is going to get people killed at a very high rate. This is the tragedy taking place right now.
It's also a tragedy that we're still there, tbh.
But we are.
And if we are going to pull out. How about telling the people we "were trying to save" how and when we will pull out so they dont face slaughter. This is not South Vietnam.
Sure, an orderly withdrawal is a good idea.
Maybe Trump could help out the military in charge by giving them the logistical time to get out orderly.Sure, an orderly withdrawal is a good idea.
This could be an unnecessary slaughter in a large number of villages and for the Afghan military guarding actual citizens who are going to get slayed once the Taliban come in. It must be noted there are a large number of ordinary people who wished we never helped so they at least did not end up on the Taliban's list.
for better and for worse, a vote for Biden was a vote for the ongoing US imperial project in South Asia.
Afghanistan & Polska
Where Empires die
MK Bhadrakumar sums it out
https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/obitua...n-afghanistan/The bottom line is that the US had no fixed agenda in the war. It shifted already within the first few weeks from the removal of the Taliban regime to an outright invasion of Afghanistan and soon thereafter to the creation of a puppet regime.
The nadir was reached when Bush began talking about a Marshall Plan to rebuild Afghanistan, as in Germany and Japan – that is, before Iraqis chastened him.
Meanwhile, the occupation of Afghanistan became an end in itself, with war profiteering turning into a roaring business with money, women, drug trafficking, foreign bank accounts, contractors, all thrown into it, spawning mind-boggling corruption and venality and creating a dysfunctional Afghan state.
That’s how, quintessentially, Afghanistan became a low-hanging fruit for the Taliban to pluck in their second coming.
I think the Economist nails it.
Mr Biden had inherited a peace deal from his predecessor. In February 2020 Donald Trump’s administration had signed an agreement with the Taliban in which America committed to reducing forces and ultimately withdrawing from the country entirely by May 1st 2021. In exchange, the Taliban promised to break with al-Qaeda and discuss a political settlement with the Afghan government. There is little sign that the Taliban has fulfilled either of its promises. In January America’s Treasury department noted that al-Qaeda members remained “embedded with the Taliban”, and on April 12th the group said it would not attend a forthcoming meeting in Turkey that would have discussed, among other things, the formation of an interim government.Once American soldiers and warplanes leave, the Taliban will be able to press its advantage. That does not mean the state will collapse at once, but it will struggle to stave off the insurgents’ advances. The Taliban has been steadily expanding its presence in and around cities, controlling the roads to Kabul and Kandahar. John Sopko, America’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, has said that the Afghan army is “a disaster”.https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/...ngest-ever-warAmerican officials say they will continue to send money to Kabul, mindful of the lessons of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, when the Soviet-backed government clung onto power in 1989—only to collapse three years later when funding was withdrawn.
Yet America’s departure will create a power vacuum that Pakistan, a longtime supporter of the Taliban, and India, a fervent opponent, will seek to fill, along with China, Iran and Russia. A war that began in 1979, with the Soviet invasion, will take another grim form.
"the way up and the way down are the same"
Number of US troops in Afghanistan could increase to help with drawdown efforts
time to bug out
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