The Taliban have taken Kandahar and Herat, Afghanistan's second and third largest cities https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-afghanistan-taliban-26d485963b7a0d9f2107afcbc38f239a They're sopping up Kabul suburbs as I write. Afghani Army rank-and-file are running off like fleas (so much for 20 years of American training!). A total takeover of the country by this truly savage, murderous movement in the works and imminent - before Labor Day, 'pundits' expect. Mass executions, theocratic authoritarianism and murderous subjugations of women, the LGBT community, ethnic and religious minorities - all in store. Safe havens for Bin Laden wanabees guaranteed, and for longer periods (you can bet your life that no nation will be touching the place for millennia). This is THE event of the 21st Century and this is THE catastrophe of the ages. America's response to this? Peer down at its navel and send copters to lift its people out of the American Embassy, April 30, 1975 Saigon-style. History repeating itself, but even swifter. Has anyone noticed the irony?

This is THE event of the 21st Century and this is THE catastrophe of the ages. America's response to this? Peer down at its navel and send copters to lift its people out of the American Embassy, April 30, 1975 Saigon-style. History repeating itself, but even swifter. Has anyone noticed the irony? Of course history is repeating itself because there isn't enough internal support for the government we are supporting. The alternative would be an expanded and permanent U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan.

It would be essentially Colonization. Do we need to revisit that period in history?

The Taliban has the momentum presently, for obvious reason, though their grip on power and control of the country will perhaps be as tenuous as the current Shia government's in the long-term. The civil conflict will likely re-emerge along its traditional sectarian fault lines (particularly as the current government adapts its strategy to one of arming guerillas to fight the Taliban on the fringes of the territory they control) and, with it, something not dissimilar to the status quo ex ante will render it difficult for any one group to exert unilateral control over a country whose geography makes it difficult even without such violent sectarianism, much less the participation of the various local powers through their proxies in their attempts to alter the balance. The issue of Afghanistan is one of balancing the various factions involved in the extended civil conflict, but this ultimately requires local investment in moderation and peace over uncompromising purism and guerilla conquest, together with an enforcement mechanism for whatever settlement might exist. Such an investment can never be imposed, much less by the United States, and the United States' involvement in the form it took may have ultimately served only to inflame the various combatants. At most, the United States and its allies can offer themselves as part of an enforcement mechanism for some regional settlement, something the current Doha "framework" lacks in a meaningful sense (not to mention the involvement of the current Afghan government, whose buy-in is crucial), particularly as the various parties thereto view whatever framework might exist as a temporary hindrance to their ultimate geopolitical objectives and a strategic obstacle to be surmounted, but long term U.S. involvement and occupation is not likely to produce a desirable result. From the U.S. perspective, the conflict can't be thought of as a war in the traditional sense, because of the disjunctive strategies at play -- I've seen it written that regimes such as the Taliban win in the absence of clear defeat, and traditional military forces such as the U.S. are defeated in the absence of clear victory. In that sense, then, given the great difficulty in meaningfully defeating a non-state adversary who claims moral and religious authority and does not rely on long-term political and public support in prolonging a conflict, that history seems to be repeating itself should be of no great surprise.

We all know 9/11 changed everything, I still get goosebumps thinking about it and what my life was like before and after the attack. My views have evolved time and time again since the attack. As of right now I can't support this decision. Nation building is the wrong policy, but we don't have to be doing that. And, in my eyes, it was never really our objective. We are bad allies and are acting as such. But I'm sure as time progresses my views will change once more.

You all know this was Trump's decision in 2019, right?

The alternative would be an expanded and permanent U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan. I'd say we more-or-less began occupying Afghanistan on a permanent basis back around 2007, or so. What we're seeing today was the always-inevitable failure of that policy, and its subsequent termination.

You all know this was Trump's decision in 2019, right? Yes, and he was right. We should be getting out of Afghanistan. The Taliban are the natural ruling class of Afghanistan. If we're not in Kabul, then they will be. Any other scenario is imaginary Neo-"conservative" assholes trying to make hay off the Biden administration's "losing Afghanistan", as if nothing had changed since 2015, are quite tiresome. Losing Afghanistan is a great idea.

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