Afghanistan

[Average Joe]

There's a good 2 part doc on the Beeb about Afghanistan and the retreat.

It's been interesting hearing that Biden was always against action there. He resisted putting more troops there under Obama's presidency. And I think Biden and Trump were largely correct to remove all troops there. One could argue the way Biden did it was ham fisted...well I'm not Sleepy's biggest fan as you know, but how else could it have been done?

I must watch this...

I have multiple friends who have gone over and risked lives for what? For the ANP to be bribed in opium and let Afghanistan go back to being a hostile country.

One of the most saddest things apart from the obvious, innocent people dying etc is that it's a beautiful country to visit.

As much as I want us to go back out there, with the way politics are at the moment we need to reserve our defenses. At the end of the day Afghan is not our war and there are neighboring countries with huge defense budgets that need to help. Currently we have bigger issues with Chine and Russia.

 

[IndoMike]

I must watch this...

I have multiple friends who have gone over and risked lives for what? For the ANP to be bribed in opium and let Afghanistan go back to being a hostile country.

One of the most saddest things apart from the obvious, innocent people dying etc is that it's a beautiful country to visit.

As much as I want us to go back out there, with the way politics are at the moment we need to reserve our defenses. At the end of the day Afghan is not our war and there are neighboring countries with huge defense budgets that need to help. Currently we have bigger issues with Chine and Russia.

And Russia getting matey with N Korea. Putin is always up to no good. Stirring the sh*t, meddling ...warring....anything to seem relevant and get on the West's nerves. I get the feeling something's going to snap : tension building up too much

Feel very sorry for the Russian people, too.

 

[Average Joe]

And Russia getting matey with N Korea. Putin is always up to no good. Stirring the sh*t, meddling ...warring....anything to seem relevant and get on the West's nerves. Feel very sorry for the Russian people, too.

It's been obvious for years that Russia wanted a war with the west without our own countries being directly harmed and now it's happened, my main worry is Russia will North Korea as a weapon against us without directly being involved. NK won't care for the repercussions and at a guess Russia is probably guiding the advancement in technology to make this happen.

Worrying times for humanity.

 

[Phil Sayers]

One of the problems is that we spent years training Afghan forces to fight in our own way - with plenty of air support. When we withdrew the air support (which I'm not sure we were actually required to do by the terms of the agreement with the Taliban - withdraw those based in Afghanistan yes but not the surrounding countries) we essentially tied a hand behind their back right before the big bout.

 

[iscalad]

One of the problems is that we spent years training Afghan forces to fight in our own way - with plenty of air support. When we withdrew the air support (which I'm not sure we were actually required to do by the terms of the agreement with the Taliban - withdraw those based in Afghanistan yes but not the surrounding countries) we essentially tied a hand behind their back right before the big bout.

Didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam

 

[DB9]

Fair play to those women who protested in Afghanistan today and had shots fired over their heads. Very brave women.