Afghanistan: Street fighting rages as Taliban attack key city

[Ralin]

Bold choice to describe women in the public sphere and comedians who made jokes about the Taliban as 'taking part in the rape of their own country'. Justify your position, fucko.

A twenty year war waged to satisfy some Americans' vengeance boners is bad. People who cooperate with armies that invade their country are called collaborators. As a sovereign nation how the post-war government of Afghanistan does or does not go about dealing with collaborators is an internal matter that other countries, especially the United States, aren't entitled to a say in.

[loomer]

Bold choice to describe women in the public sphere and comedians who made jokes about the Taliban as 'taking part in the rape of their own country'. Justify your position, fucko.

A twenty year war waged to satisfy some Americans' vengeance boners is bad. People who cooperate with armies that invade their country are called collaborators. As a sovereign nation how the post-war government of Afghanistan does or does not go about dealing with collaborators is an internal matter that other countries, especially the United States, aren't entitled to a say in.

Remind me, did the women in the public sphere who did things like 'learn to read' and 'run workshops to prevent domestic violence' collaborate with the invading forces?

[Ralin]

Remind me, did the women in the public sphere who did things like 'learn to read' and 'run workshops to prevent domestic violence' collaborate with the invading forces?

I wouldn't know. But it's definitely not the United States government's business to decide.

[loomer]

Remind me, did the women in the public sphere who did things like 'learn to read' and 'run workshops to prevent domestic violence' collaborate with the invading forces?

I wouldn't know. But it's definitely not the United States government's business to decide.

I see. So, as long as it's the Taliban doing it, you're okay with them, say, torturing minor civil servants to death?

[Ralin]

I see. So, as long as it's the Taliban doing it, you're okay with them, say, torturing minor civil servants to death?

Yeah, see this sort of 'but they're such savages!!' bullshit is how they justified invading and occupying the place for twenty years.

[loomer]

I see. So, as long as it's the Taliban doing it, you're okay with them, say, torturing minor civil servants to death?

Yeah, see this sort of 'but they're such savages!!' bullshit is how they justified invading and occupying the place for twenty years.

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you unaware that the Taliban have been beating and summarily executing minor civil servants, comedians, and other civilians during their advance? Or do you just doubt the testimony of witnesses?

You'll have to try harder with your Chomsky impression, fucko.

[Ralin]

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you unaware that the Taliban have been beating and summarily executing minor civil servants, comedians, and other civilians during their advance? Or do you just doubt the testimony of witnesses?

You'll have to try harder with your Chomsky impression, fucko.

You don't get to invade a country, inflict twenty years of violence and occupation on it and then cherry-pick the best and most lurid stories about how violent and evil the group that's finally within sight of driving you out is as a justification for further intervention. Not a difficult concept.

[loomer]

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you unaware that the Taliban have been beating and summarily executing minor civil servants, comedians, and other civilians during their advance? Or do you just doubt the testimony of witnesses?

You'll have to try harder with your Chomsky impression, fucko.

You don't get to invade a country, inflict twenty years of violence and occupation on it and then cherry-pick the best and most lurid stories about how violent and evil the group that's finally within sight of driving you out is as a justification for further intervention. Not a difficult concept.

I'm sorry, I don't recall advocating for further intervention. Would you care to show me where I did?

Again, do better with your Chomsky impression.

[Ralin]

I'm sorry, I don't recall advocating for further intervention. Would you care to show me where I did?

Again, do better with your Chomsky impression.

Perhaps the only moral option available to the occupation force is to allow anyone who wants, without all the current vetting that's dragged on for over a decade and which is leaving even well-regarded and trusted collaborators with occupation military forces to be tortured and executed, to come to their countries and receive a full resettlement package.

Note you specifically said 'collaborators with occupation military forces'

[loomer]

I did indeed, but that isn't me calling for further intervention - it's calling for an open evacuation policy during the withdrawal. You're really not very good at playing Chomsky, maybe you should try out for easier roles.

Now, as for the 'collaborators with occupation military forces', have you considered reading it in context? They're in there to point out that even already exhaustively vetted people at an extremely high risk of being subject to persecution, torture, and extrajudicial execution are being bogged down in an additional vetting process that can take over a decade, not to suggest that they alone deserve to be allowed to leave, or that they deserve some special treatment. They are proof that the current vetting process is not fit for purpose under the best of times, let alone in a crisis.

Naturally, of course, you got your dick hard imagining a collaborating translator being shot through the skull and decided that so long as that happens, it's perfectly cool if we leave behind women in the public sphere, minor civil servants, and anyone else who might reasonably fear persecution regardless of their involvement, or lack of, in or with the occupation forces.

[Broomstick]

Oh, please - don't twist my words in an attempt to paint me your adversary. EVERYONE's hands are dirty, without exception. There is no good or bad side here. Keep reading.

I’m not twisting your words at all. You’re very clearly determined to downplay American crimes by pulling the classic “He was no angel” bullshit. There is a right side here and that side is the one that has spent the past twenty years fighting the forces which invaded their country.

Ah, so you think the Tabliban are angels and you back their misogynist, bloody rule. You back women being denied education, or even the freedom to leave the home. You are OK with that custom being enforced by acid thrown into faces. You are OK with school children being shot in the head. Because these people are angels for defending their homes.

Just ignore that they aided and abetted someone who attacked the invader.

While I agree anyone has the right to defend their homes, the people you are defending are not good people.

You forget that the Taliban gave sanctuary and comfort to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national and not an Afghan, who masterminded an attack on the most militarily powerful country on the planet. There was no fucking way the US wasn't going to make someone pay for 9/11, which would be the exact same reaction of any other nation attacked who could possibly retaliate to an attack.
…
The Taliban were not a bunch of innocent victims. They aided and abetted the attacks on 9/11.

You forget, America has invaded and sponsored coups and terrorist groups in scores of countries around the world. Nothing the Taliban or Al-Qaeda did to the US comes close to what America inflicted on the people of Iraq just to name one country. By your logic half the world should be attacking America non-stop for revenge, and yet you think that one terrorist attack in New York justifies a generation of violent vengeance to vent America’s spleen?

First NO sovereign country will tolerate a direct attack on their land. NONE. Your notion that somehow America should be an exception to this is naive stupidity.

Second, we're talking about Afghanistan here, NOT Iraq.

Third, I in no way think it was justified and have even stated so, and will do so again. Acknowledging reality is not to condone it. Once attacked there was no way in hell the US was NOT going to retaliate whether YOU think it was justified or not, whether or not you or I or anyone else approved or disapproved.

The notion that we could go into any country and change the culture and politics into a western democracy was a delusion of Bush and the Republicans (who also wanted to rape and pillage the country in the finest colonial fashion). It was never a delusion of mine. It was misguided from the start and I'm glad it's ending, despite the fact it will be bloody. I wish we had left much earlier. Unlike you, though, I'm not cheering the comming carnage among those who allied with the Americans.

Don't want your country invaded (by anyone)? Don't harbor people willing and able to launch attacks on other nations in your borders.

So when will we be turning George W Bush over?

I'd be OK with that, but that's never going to happen because he's rich and powerful and the former leader of a military superpower. That's the reality of the world. He's going to die safe in his bed and never have to answer for the hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from his decisions. If you say that's unjust I'd agree with you completely.

It's not a comparable situation in no small part because the US isn't going to be invaded. It's one of the small number of countries that can act with impunity. Like Russia, for instance, taking over the Crimea in 2014. Again, if you say that's not right I'd agree with you, but that is the actual reality these days.

What kind of a sick fuck are you to cheer the torture and death of other human beings?

Where the hell do you get off thinking that after twenty years of raping the nation of Afghanistan the United States government has any right to a say in how their new government deals with collaborators?

In MY country, at least in theory (I'll admit the practice can often be shit) the accused get defenders, a trial, and aren't tortured on the way. The Rosenbergs were executed for espionage against the US in 1951, "collaborating" with the Soviet Union, but they got a trial and a relatively quick death. That's not going to happen in Afghanistan and you're cheering the mistreatment and bloodbath that will follow there. That's what's sick here. Sure, the Taliban (who are not and never have been the government of all Afghanistan and have been consistently opposed from within by other factions, and didn't even exist before 1994) have as much right to control what territory they hold as any other conquerors, but that in no way means I have to approve of their methods.

You act like the Taliban are some age-old rulers of Afghanistan but they're just one of the factions from the Afghan civil war from the early 1990's, the organization (if you can call it that) a mere 25 years old who took over by force of arms, not because everyone thought they were the best guys. The most part of Afghanistan they've ever held was about 70% and while they might conquer all of it by next Tuesday they will find, like everyone else has, that holding it is an entirely different manner.

For all you know the "collaborators" that sided with the US had NEVER been in favor of the Taliban and might have been fighting it since the 1990's. And you're OK, basically, with the losers in a civil war being slaughtered. Nice guy you aren't. And you're OK with torture and brutal forms of execution. Which makes you a sick fuck in my book.

Blah blah blah, he was no angel.

You have no answer to my argument, gotcha.

As for "criminals" - those "criminals" aren't criminals by US standards,

They aren’t Americans and they didn’t commit their crimes in America.

Which is why I'm OK with them coming to America and/or seeking asylum in any country that will take them. From my perspective they aren't criminals.

Unless you're going to argue that every single American should stand trial in Afghanistan and submit to whatever punishment the Taliban deems appropriate

Absolutely. Every single soldier, every single contractor, every single mercenary who took part in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan should be rounded up and turned over to stand trial.

Everyone who paid the taxes that supported the war? In other words, you think every single American should be subjected to the Tabliban legal "system"? Every single person connected in any way to the fiasco? Why are you giving the Taliban that much power? You think living under their system would be a good thing? Do you think being treated as a criminal under their system would be a good thing? When are you getting on an airplane to turn yourself in?

What the fuck did you expect the people in American-held territory to do? They had to make a living somehow, so they got jobs with the biggest employer around. I'm sure for many it was a matter of either expediency or no real choice. They shouldn't die for that.

Those sound like issues for the local government to decide, don’t you think?

The problem, from my viewpoint, is that 1) in many cases the Taliban are NOT the local government, they are moving in and killing the local government and taking over and 2) these are people whose idea of justice is to kill victims of forcible rape.

Post WWII we didn't put the ordinary people of Germany and Japan on trial and execute them because they, for example, served cocktails to Nazis while they were working in a bar, or sold groceries to Nazi party members. France didn't execute the millions of people who did NOT join the French resistance or fight back against the Germans occupying their country. The Taliban, however, seem intent in killing people who were just trying to survive in an occupied territory. And you seem totally OK with that. Which attitude I find both puzzling and repugnant.

The Taliban don't believe in that sort of legal system. They won't be allowed an argument or defense, they'll just be put to death. No trial. No recourse. But hey, they're just brown people, right? [/sarcasm]

Those brown people can’t be expected to have any sort of legal system. They’re just savages. We can’t let them make those sorts of decisions for themselves. We have to spirit anyone who might be found guilty away to a civilized country![/whatbroomstickbelieves]

Again, you distort my words to serve your ends. I did not say they didn't have a legal system, I said that sort of legal system. They do have one, every human society has one, but I find theirs repugnant. Any system where being a victim of rape gets you executed, where failing to show proper reverence to a book can get you executed, where being anything other that heterosexual can get you killed, and so on and so forth is not a legal system I would want to either live under or subject anyone else to. That doesn't mean I fail to acknowledge the existence of such a system, just that I find it abhorrent. Which is why I will never visit Afghanistan.

Oh, and by the way - the people living under the Taliban have no choice, the Taliban are not elected, they are conquerors. The fact they're "locals" does not in any way mean that they were chosen by the people they rule over. The notion that they are "making decisions for themselves" is ludicrous when the average person has zero say in those who rule them.

You, on the other hand, don't care about the civilians who had no more "choice" to collaborate with the Americans occupying their land than other Aghans have "choice" when living under the rule of the Taliban being brutalized and killed for having the misfortune to be located on the wrong spot on the map. They're just distant brown people to you, their pain and death isn't real to you.

Taking "collaborators" to the US is no different that, say, Americans who defected to the USSR during the Cold War or that one guy who defected to North Korea.

I’m sure they’ll get a fairer hearing than any of their countrymen who ‘coalition forces’ drone-bombed.

Why the FUCK do you think these people will get a "hearing"? They'll be summarily executed where they aren't simply being gunned down in the street. Which is sort of common in war, I acknowledge, but again just because I recognize reality doesn't mean I approve of it.

[ray245]

Ralin has drank too much kool aid and think the Taliban is some sort of enlightened freedom fighters that believe in the rule of law and etc.

[loomer]

I wonder how much Ralin has actually looked into how the Taliban's court system functions, and crucially, the areas of law in which it explicitly does not function and instead permits summary judgment without any form of hearing, with penalties up to and including execution, solely on the basis of regional officials independent opinion. Or, for that matter, why he thinks so many of the Hazara have fled Afghanistan over the decades for my country.

Of course, this'll probably just be met with another 'you're just cherrypicking the worst excesses of two decades to justify intervention'.

[ray245]

I wonder how much Ralin has actually looked into how the Taliban's court system functions, and crucially, the areas of law in which it explicitly does not function and instead permits summary judgment without any form of hearing, with penalties up to and including execution, solely on the basis of regional officials independent opinion. Or, for that matter, why he thinks so many of the Hazara have fled Afghanistan over the decades for my country.

Of course, this'll probably just be met with another 'you're just cherrypicking the worst excesses of two decades to justify intervention'.

He's so stuck in his ideological hellhole that all anti Americans are enlightened liberators that he can't and won't acknowledge how bad the Talibans are.

It's why critical thinking skills is important. Something that he lacks.

The Taliban isn't the same as the vietcom. Vietcom is an actual political government that tries to rule by law.

[Vendetta]

I did indeed, but that isn't me calling for further intervention - it's calling for an open evacuation policy during the withdrawal. You're really not very good at playing Chomsky, maybe you should try out for easier roles.

Now, as for the 'collaborators with occupation military forces', have you considered reading it in context? They're in there to point out that even already exhaustively vetted people at an extremely high risk of being subject to persecution, torture, and extrajudicial execution are being bogged down in an additional vetting process that can take over a decade, not to suggest that they alone deserve to be allowed to leave, or that they deserve some special treatment. They are proof that the current vetting process is not fit for purpose under the best of times, let alone in a crisis.

Naturally, of course, you got your dick hard imagining a collaborating translator being shot through the skull and decided that so long as that happens, it's perfectly cool if we leave behind women in the public sphere, minor civil servants, and anyone else who might reasonably fear persecution regardless of their involvement, or lack of, in or with the occupation forces.

I think this is an "all the answers are wrong" scenario.

Aside from wishful thinking which cannot physically be enacted like "the entire population of several provinces of Afghanistan", there's no number that can be evacuated that will be enough. The Taliban will go looking for collaborators or ideological enemies or plain old examples to make and they'll find them wherever it's convenient. The wave of atrocities will happen to someone. So it's just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party at this point. What number of people evacuated satisfies your conscience that the Right Thing was done at the end?

Even the moral high ground in this argument is pretty deep underwater.

[loomer]

I did indeed, but that isn't me calling for further intervention - it's calling for an open evacuation policy during the withdrawal. You're really not very good at playing Chomsky, maybe you should try out for easier roles.

Now, as for the 'collaborators with occupation military forces', have you considered reading it in context? They're in there to point out that even already exhaustively vetted people at an extremely high risk of being subject to persecution, torture, and extrajudicial execution are being bogged down in an additional vetting process that can take over a decade, not to suggest that they alone deserve to be allowed to leave, or that they deserve some special treatment. They are proof that the current vetting process is not fit for purpose under the best of times, let alone in a crisis.

Naturally, of course, you got your dick hard imagining a collaborating translator being shot through the skull and decided that so long as that happens, it's perfectly cool if we leave behind women in the public sphere, minor civil servants, and anyone else who might reasonably fear persecution regardless of their involvement, or lack of, in or with the occupation forces.

I think this is an "all the answers are wrong" scenario.

Aside from wishful thinking which cannot physically be enacted like "the entire population of several provinces of Afghanistan", there's no number that can be evacuated that will be enough. The Taliban will go looking for collaborators or ideological enemies or plain old examples to make and they'll find them wherever it's convenient. The wave of atrocities will happen to someone. So it's just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party at this point. What number of people evacuated satisfies your conscience that the Right Thing was done at the end?

Even the moral high ground in this argument is pretty deep underwater.

It's not 'just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party'. Actions taken to minimize the injuries inflicted on non-combatants are a moral good in and of themselves - so, bluntly, there can be no number to magically tick a box that 'oh well we did the right thing at the end there', because that's not what it's about, and it's vaguely reprehensible to suggest it can be boiled down to that. You don't shield refugees fleeing persecution to make yourself feel better, you do it because it's right - it may very well make you feel worse, not better, but you do it anyway.

[Vendetta]

I did indeed, but that isn't me calling for further intervention - it's calling for an open evacuation policy during the withdrawal. You're really not very good at playing Chomsky, maybe you should try out for easier roles.

Now, as for the 'collaborators with occupation military forces', have you considered reading it in context? They're in there to point out that even already exhaustively vetted people at an extremely high risk of being subject to persecution, torture, and extrajudicial execution are being bogged down in an additional vetting process that can take over a decade, not to suggest that they alone deserve to be allowed to leave, or that they deserve some special treatment. They are proof that the current vetting process is not fit for purpose under the best of times, let alone in a crisis.

Naturally, of course, you got your dick hard imagining a collaborating translator being shot through the skull and decided that so long as that happens, it's perfectly cool if we leave behind women in the public sphere, minor civil servants, and anyone else who might reasonably fear persecution regardless of their involvement, or lack of, in or with the occupation forces.

I think this is an "all the answers are wrong" scenario.

Aside from wishful thinking which cannot physically be enacted like "the entire population of several provinces of Afghanistan", there's no number that can be evacuated that will be enough. The Taliban will go looking for collaborators or ideological enemies or plain old examples to make and they'll find them wherever it's convenient. The wave of atrocities will happen to someone. So it's just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party at this point. What number of people evacuated satisfies your conscience that the Right Thing was done at the end?

Even the moral high ground in this argument is pretty deep underwater.

It's not 'just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party'. Actions taken to minimize the injuries inflicted on non-combatants are a moral good in and of themselves - so, bluntly, there can be no number to magically tick a box that 'oh well we did the right thing at the end there', because that's not what it's about, and it's vaguely reprehensible to suggest it can be boiled down to that. You don't shield refugees fleeing persecution to make yourself feel better, you do it because it's right - it may very well make you feel worse, not better, but you do it anyway.

Right, but you basically can't do that. You can't minimise the injuries inflicted on non-combatants in this scenario, there's no achievable threshold for that because as already identified they're willing to reach so far down the totem pole of civil engagement that basically everyone is a target. You can only choose which non-combatants are spared from them.

Whoever's left after the US leaves is who gets to be brutalised by the Taliban, for years on end until they dissolve from within or I dunno, China fancies a go maybe. There's no minimisation achievable, the level of brutality and violence to the Afghan people will be the same. Someone will suffer, pick who. There's no "right thing" here, only a huge buffet of wrong ones to choose the least unpalatable of.

The retreating forces should certainly take with them anyone who has actively worked with them, because they are identifiably beholden, but all that will mean is that someone else gets the lash or the bullet in the back of the head in their place.

[loomer]

I think this is an "all the answers are wrong" scenario.

Aside from wishful thinking which cannot physically be enacted like "the entire population of several provinces of Afghanistan", there's no number that can be evacuated that will be enough. The Taliban will go looking for collaborators or ideological enemies or plain old examples to make and they'll find them wherever it's convenient. The wave of atrocities will happen to someone. So it's just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party at this point. What number of people evacuated satisfies your conscience that the Right Thing was done at the end?

Even the moral high ground in this argument is pretty deep underwater.

It's not 'just a case of assuaging the conscience of the defeated party'. Actions taken to minimize the injuries inflicted on non-combatants are a moral good in and of themselves - so, bluntly, there can be no number to magically tick a box that 'oh well we did the right thing at the end there', because that's not what it's about, and it's vaguely reprehensible to suggest it can be boiled down to that. You don't shield refugees fleeing persecution to make yourself feel better, you do it because it's right - it may very well make you feel worse, not better, but you do it anyway.

Right, but you basically can't do that. You can't minimise the injuries inflicted on non-combatants in this scenario, there's no achievable threshold for that because as already identified they're willing to reach so far down the totem pole of civil engagement that basically everyone is a target. You can only choose which non-combatants are spared from them.

A =/= B. You cannot keep everyone from harm, but you can keep some. The moral value of taking actions that are possible is not impacted by an inability of those actions to achieve an impossible task.

Whoever's left after the US leaves is who gets to be brutalised by the Taliban, for years on end until they dissolve from within or I dunno, China fancies a go maybe. There's no minimisation achievable, the level of brutality and violence to the Afghan people will be the same. Someone will suffer, pick who. There's no "right thing" here, only a huge buffet of wrong ones to choose the least unpalatable of.

The minimization of harm to those that you are in a position to help remains a moral good and the right thing to do. Your stance here is akin to saying 'well, three people are drowning, and I only have one life vest, so... I guess I'll just keep it here.'

The retreating forces should certainly take with them anyone who has actively worked with them, because they are identifiably beholden, but all that will mean is that someone else gets the lash or the bullet in the back of the head in their place.

And you're limiting it to anyone who has actively worked with them and not anyone who wants out and they can possibly fit why?

[Vendetta]

A =/= B. You cannot keep everyone from harm, but you can keep some. The moral value of taking actions that are possible is not impacted by an inability of those actions to achieve an impossible task.

But only at the expense of others. The moral outcome is totally neutral because for everyone you choose to save, someone else is put in the line of fire. You can not only not keep everyone from harm, you can't reduce the total amount of harm that is going to happen.

The minimization of harm to those that you are in a position to help remains a moral good and the right thing to do. Your stance here is akin to saying 'well, three people are drowning, and I only have one life vest, so... I guess I'll just keep it here.'

No. See, here's the thing. This isn't "three people are drowning, I can save one with this life vest", it's "three people are drowning, and I can save one by chucking someone else off the boat".

Three people still drown. You just get to pick which three.

And you're limiting it to anyone who has actively worked with them and not anyone who wants out and they can possibly fit why?

No matter how many you can possibly fit, for every one who leaves another will suffer, because the pool of possible victims of the Taliban cannot be reduced below the amount of harm they are capable of committing, and they are ideologically motivated to commit that level of harm irrespective of the particulars of the victims.

That's why I'm saying there are no right answers. Any method you choose for who and how many you evacuate does not reduce the sum of suffering, it only shields those specific individuals from it. That can't be claimed as a moral good, only a personal good for those specific people at the expense of others.

[loomer]

A =/= B. You cannot keep everyone from harm, but you can keep some. The moral value of taking actions that are possible is not impacted by an inability of those actions to achieve an impossible task.

But only at the expense of others. The moral outcome is totally neutral because for everyone you choose to save, someone else is put in the line of fire. You can not only not keep everyone from harm, you can't reduce the total amount of harm that is going to happen.

I'm not sure this is even close to correct, bluntly. You're operating under the position that the Taliban are going to effectively arbitrarily harm the exact same number of people in the same ways no matter what is done to reduce the target list - a position that, from what I can see, draws from no facts at all. Do you have any?

The minimization of harm to those that you are in a position to help remains a moral good and the right thing to do. Your stance here is akin to saying 'well, three people are drowning, and I only have one life vest, so... I guess I'll just keep it here.'

No. See, here's the thing. This isn't "three people are drowning, I can save one with this life vest", it's "three people are drowning, and I can save one by chucking someone else off the boat".

Three people still drown. You just get to pick which three.

The problem with your example, Vendetta, is that you are assuming the people are already on the boat. They aren't. They're in the water, and you can fit three on. You are filling the deck with imaginary people and saying 'it would be wrong to remove this imaginary person to save this real person'.

And you're limiting it to anyone who has actively worked with them and not anyone who wants out and they can possibly fit why?

No matter how many you can possibly fit, for every one who leaves another will suffer, because the pool of possible victims of the Taliban cannot be reduced below the amount of harm they are capable of committing, and they are ideologically motivated to commit that level of harm irrespective of the particulars of the victims.

That's why I'm saying there are no right answers. Any method you choose for who and how many you evacuate does not reduce the sum of suffering, it only shields those specific individuals from it. That can't be claimed as a moral good, only a personal good for those specific people at the expense of others.

Again, the Taliban are not as arbitrary as you seem to wish them to be, and there are certain groups who have much more reason to fear direct and brutal persecution than others. Because those groups are so wide, removing as many of their members from the situation as both wish to escape it and who you can accomodate limits the number of people who will be targeted. It is only if the Taliban are simply killing and brutalizing random people, entirely without rhyme or reason and with a set number to fill regardless of how many people are actually present, that your logic works. In the absence of that, your position is bluntly moral cowardice. You are saying 'we cannot save everyone, so let's not save anyone (except the pool of victims I personally endorse, despite arguing that this will only transfer their suffering to others)'.

[MKSheppard]

Because Vympel isn't hanging around SDN, this is for him:

Soviet Withdrawal of Afghanistan: 15 Feb 1989 -- last soviet troops leave.
Collapse of Soviet Puppet Government: March 1992
TIME: 1,110 days.

Versus

On 14 April 2021, Biden announced his intention to withdraw all regular U.S. troops by 11 September 2021, the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and four months after the initially planned 1 May deadline.
..
On 8 July 2021, President Biden announced that the official conclusion to the war in Afghanistan will be on 31 August 2021

[Vendetta]

Again, the Taliban are not as arbitrary as you seem to wish them to be, and there are certain groups who have much more reason to fear direct and brutal persecution than others. Because those groups are so wide, removing as many of their members from the situation as both wish to escape it and who you can accomodate limits the number of people who will be targeted. It is only if the Taliban are simply killing and brutalizing random people, entirely without rhyme or reason and with a set number to fill regardless of how many people are actually present, that your logic works. In the absence of that, your position is bluntly moral cowardice. You are saying 'we cannot save everyone, so let's not save anyone (except the pool of victims I personally endorse, despite arguing that this will only transfer their suffering to others)'.

I don't think they're arbitrary. I think their will to do harm and their pool of available people they would harm far exceeds their immediate term capacity to do it, and that will remain true in all achievable cases of evacuation.

[Broomstick]

Bold choice to describe women in the public sphere and comedians who made jokes about the Taliban as 'taking part in the rape of their own country'. Justify your position, fucko.

A twenty year war waged to satisfy some Americans' vengeance boners is bad. People who cooperate with armies that invade their country are called collaborators. As a sovereign nation how the post-war government of Afghanistan does or does not go about dealing with collaborators is an internal matter that other countries, especially the United States, aren't entitled to a say in.

I don't get you white-knighting for the Taliban.

First, the Taliban have NEVER been the "legitimate" government of Afghanistan, and for you to assert that means you are engaging in yet another exercise of the West picking winners and losers in other parts of the world.

The last "legitimate" government of Afghanistan ended in April of 1992 when the new interim government of the Peshwar accords was supposed to replace the Republic of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, not everyone was on board with that and the Afghan civil war began. There were quite a few groups involved and the Taliban was only one of many, arising in the southern and eastern portions of Afghanistan.

This was the map in 1996:



As you can see, the north 1/3 was NOT under Taliban rule, had never been under Taliban rule, and those people of the "Northern Alliance" also known as the "United Front" - an Afghan grouping, NOT an invention of the US - were opposed to the Taliban. Oh, and the first action of the Taliban on conquering Kabul? The castrated the former president of Afghanistan, tortured him and his brother to death, then hung their bodies from a tower an an example to others. They haven't gotten any nicer since. About a million people fled north to join the United Front and that was the start of the Afghan civil war part II.

Here are four maps showing the progress of THAT little dust-up, up until the point the US got itself mired in the mess:

As can be plainly seen, there's a chunk of the country that has NEVER been ruled by the Taliban, and the fortunes of the various factions were ever-shifting. Easily half the maximum territory ever controlled by the Taliban was taken by force of arms from the unwilling, and the Taliban were constantly plagued by rebellions from within their territory and attacks from without. They have NEVER been the actual government of Afghanistan. In truth, since 1992 no such thing has existed. You, Ralin have been either misled or allowed yourself to be deluded by the over-simplification of Western media soundbites.

To repeat: the Taliban are not and have never been the government of Afghanistan.

The members of the United Front are NOT "quislings" or "collaborators" - they are an opposing faction in a civil war who chose to ally with other nations to fight their battles. To those people the Taliban are and have been the enemy since 1992.

You could have looked all of this up with 5 minutes on Google or wikipedia but I suppose you have a lot more fun wanking off to your fantasies of heroic "freedom fighters" giving the middle digit to the US while they put bullets in the heads of their own daughters for the "crime" of going to school. Good team you picked. Says a lot about you.

Of course, if the Taliban really do succeed in taking the entire place by the end of next week they might have a claim to owning the place, but as of now you're white-knighting for just one faction among many in a multi-decade civil war that started 9 years before the US ever got involved and I suspect will continue long after.

[Broomstick]

I see. So, as long as it's the Taliban doing it, you're okay with them, say, torturing minor civil servants to death?

Yeah, see this sort of 'but they're such savages!!' bullshit is how they justified invading and occupying the place for twenty years.

Incorrect.

It was justified with "you harbored the guy who organized the hijacking of four airliners, turned 16 square blocks of Manhattan into a crater, punched a hole in the side of the Pentagon, and killed 2900+ people."

If I recall correctly, the US did ask the Taliban to hand over bin Laden. If they had maybe they wouldn't have been invaded. We'll never know.

[Broomstick]

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you unaware that the Taliban have been beating and summarily executing minor civil servants, comedians, and other civilians during their advance? Or do you just doubt the testimony of witnesses?

You'll have to try harder with your Chomsky impression, fucko.

You don't get to invade a country, inflict twenty years of violence and occupation on it and then cherry-pick the best and most lurid stories about how violent and evil the group that's finally within sight of driving you out is as a justification for further intervention. Not a difficult concept.

Again, the violence had been on-going for 9 years prior to the US getting involved. And if they had just handed over bin Laden then Bush the Younger would have lost a lot of the enthusiasm for invading (which, to be honest, was only marginal to begin with as quite a few Americans were not at all on board with invading the quagmire of Afghanistan). The "lurid stories" started long before the Americans arrived - did you miss my prior post about the Taliban castrating and torturing the former President of Afghanistan to death? That was in 1996, five years before the Americans got involved. Shooting school girls in the head, torturing those who didn't submit, etc. etc. all happening in the mid-90's.

This is aside from the fact that Taliban itself is an occupying force in regards to at least the northern third of Afghanistan and arguably a much larger portion of it. Please look up the goddamned history before you make yourself look even more ignorant.

Also, as loomer notes, not one person here is advocating for "further intervention". Some of us have been expressing that we wished this all ended long ago. Perhaps you should think for yourself and not keep taking dictation from the voices in your head. Oh, and learn to fucking read for comprehension. Also, search engines are your friend.