Withdrawal from Afghanistan

[Marshmallow Marshall]

That couldn't be further from the truth. I've been trying quite hard not to contribute to threads that seem toxic for quite a few months now, albeit with a few hiccups. If this devolves into people shitflinging I would PM Aamirus or MM and ask them to close my thread as soon as I could.

In particular, I don't have as much patience for interpersonal feuds as I used to. If you're just looking for an argument, kindly piss off lol. But I think people have been (somewhat?) better for a couple weeks, and I am genuinely very curious to hear people's takes on this. So I want to give it a shot.

+99999999, let's keep things in this spirit

Ngl, this was the first time I heard of it.
Upon searching for an official announcement by the president, I learned that Trump is no longer it.
I think I might have watched one too many cat videos..


From what I understand,
-In something called the "Doha Agreement" Trump promised the withdrawal to the Taliban.
-That agreement forced Biden to choose between a withdrawal now or an escalation of the war.

I wanted to search for Trump's reason of the promise and what I could find was:
To which I must sadly say that I don't either. If someone could educate me on that - that'd be great. ╰(*´︶`*)╯

What are the Taliban, and why did Trump promise it to them instead of the Afghan government?
What's that Taliban takeover of Afghanistan right after the withdrawal? Sounds to me like "Afghanistan's takeover of Afghanistan", ngl. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The taliban movement is a fundamentalist islamic movement; "taliban" means "student", implying "of the faith". They were uh, very naughty when it comes to human rights (like really very naughty), and then helped/hid Ben Laden. This angered the USA, who punished them severely - by attacking them, I believe in 2001, with an international coalition (war against terror). That's the official version, at least.

A more critical approach would involve analysis of the strategical location of the country; during the Cold War, the two blocs were heavily involved in the area, and it's some kind of border between worlds - the Western/westernized world, the South-Asian world, Russia, etc. Everyone wants control of that place, which is a big reason for invading them (them generally governing in a terribly repressive manner just adds a layer of legitimacy). However, the people there happen to be Muslim in a quite traditionalist manner, which is why the taliban were strong: they had the support of the people, at least in rural regions. Thus, it does sound like Afghanistan's takeover of Afghanistan because that's what it is for a significant part, sadly. It's not only that, though, since there was a liberalization process going on in cities (I say in cities because rural areas are de facto governed by tribe leaders who do whatever the hell they want lol, to say it broadly). That means women holding power positions and not being under hijab 24/7, for example. This is very probably going to end.

Afghanistan was an invasion that ultimately failed; the guerilla warfare applied by talibans was the way to go, it seems. If the people there don't change their mentalities significantly enough, sending tanks won't do much.

[OzyWho]

The taliban movement is a fundamentalist islamic movement; "taliban" means "student", implying "of the faith".

With Taliban in charge the country will be Islamic on a governmental level, that's how I interpret this.
But Afghanistan is 99.7% Muslim, so there's not really an actual difference here right? Apart from maybe it's the more "radical" Muslims being in charge.

[Stealthbomber16]

With Taliban in charge the country will be Islamic on a governmental level, that's how I interpret this.
But Afghanistan is 99.7% Muslim, so there's not really an actual difference here right? Apart from maybe it's the more "radical" Muslims being in charge.

I’m not even gonna pretend to know a good amount of this but AFAIK there are two subsects of Islam and they fucking hate each other. IIRC Taliban is one, the previous government is the other.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

It's not racist though, that's a misleading thought.
If you look at the study I posted here(which comprised of ~11k people), you'll find that in the UK people have a consensus that ethnic diversity is good, but at the same time that the rate of change and migration is too rapid. It's just a small part of a ~160 pages of that study, but it showcases well how the usual "you're against immigrants makes you racist" train of thought is just, for all intents and purposes, proven wrong.

^^^^^^ and even just on a purely intellectual basis, not wanting massive/uncontrolled immigration flows and all the instability they bring on many levels doesn't mean you hate the people that come.

With Taliban in charge the country will be Islamic on a governmental level, that's how I interpret this.
But Afghanistan is 99.7% Muslim, so there's not really an actual difference here right? Apart from maybe it's the more "radical" Muslims being in charge.

There's Muslim and Muslim, though. Talibans were very restrictive, couldn't care less for human rights, and had (still have) no intent to create any democracy. The previous regime was islamic as well (the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan sounds pretty... islamic), but much more liberal and democratic compared to the talibans' regime.


Also Stealth, do you mean Sunni and Shia Islam? I thought pretty much everyone with political importance was Sunni in Afghanistan, although I'm not highly informed on the topic either.

[OzyWho]

There's Muslim and Muslim, though. Talibans were very restrictive, couldn't care less for human rights, and had (still have) no intent to create any democracy. The previous regime was islamic as well (the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan sounds pretty... islamic), but much more liberal and democratic compared to the talibans' regime.

What are your thoughts on opinions such as this?
(I will copy paste quite raw, I know you don't mind )

I think the idea of forcing that society to adopt the way we structure our society is very foolish. They are a very tribal people and even saying 'The taliban' took it back misses the fact that the majority of the fighters we are calling Taliban have no loyalty to such a group We get too caught up in labels in general from my experience over there. They are just not organized in such a structured way.

"what do u think the taliban are?" Its a label 1st world countries use so they can talk about the fight in terms people will understand They are really and truly on the most basic level tribal groups Some like etchother and some dont. Its many small groups doing things, every one with their own goals and beliefs

You can group everyone that say- fights the US forces and give them a name but they are no more an organization than we are as a species Largely. Its all about power structures

"so they're not some collective org?" In a way they are but its more semantics Its a category we make A label we put on what is essentially a superorganism although that lable suggests its an organism. If that makes sense

Its a huge difference in how society's are structured. And your dealing with people who's loyaltys go back many generations and hold blood feuds with other people For an example, There was this city in Helmand Province Afghanistan that had an insurgent issue. Some foreign fighters came to fight us. The city was getting pissed because they were setting IED's but some were blowing their own people up. That city was made up mostly of 2 sects that had issues with etchother. We stepped in and took out the insurgents and they were happy. After a while we left but came back a month later to discover the town was abandoned. Turns out that with the insurgents gone the two groups went back to fighting and they killed etch-other off. The survivors were so few they just left. In our minds we may look at that as a city, the town as one group. But it was 3 'tribes' each with their own loyalty's. We can put the label on it to talk about it but it does not change the way that society interacted and our intervention ended up costing dozens of lives of those we 'say' we were there to protect Anyways.. Im rambling. But I have quite a bit of personal experience over there and can't help but feel like that entire situation should have been expected. In that war we fought them and they used the weapons we gave them to fight the russians to do it. In the next we will fight them again with the weapons we gave them. The capitalistic war machine keeps grinding out the tax dollars and the objective isn't to win. Peace is bad for business imo.

Politicians are scrambling to figure out how they can manipulate how the information is presented to keep them in power while the weapons manufacturers are pushing their lobbyists to get those in power to get that war machine running again Or that is how I see it anyways

I can see how it's possible that we in the west are labeling everyone over there too much.

What I can't quite follow is the "peace if bad for business" statement in combination with politicians.
The military is funded by the money of tax payers. Choosing to spend that money on military gives no money to the politicians, goverment or country. (other than maybe it giving you access to oil or something)

[Marshmallow Marshall]

What are your thoughts on opinions such as this?
(I will copy paste quite raw, I know you don't mind )

I think the idea of forcing that society to adopt the way we structure our society is very foolish. They are a very tribal people and even saying 'The taliban' took it back misses the fact that the majority of the fighters we are calling Taliban have no loyalty to such a group We get too caught up in labels in general from my experience over there. They are just not organized in such a structured way.

"what do u think the taliban are?" Its a label 1st world countries use so they can talk about the fight in terms people will understand They are really and truly on the most basic level tribal groups Some like etchother and some dont. Its many small groups doing things, every one with their own goals and beliefs

You can group everyone that say- fights the US forces and give them a name but they are no more an organization than we are as a species Largely. Its all about power structures

"so they're not some collective org?" In a way they are but its more semantics Its a category we make A label we put on what is essentially a superorganism although that lable suggests its an organism. If that makes sense

Its a huge difference in how society's are structured. And your dealing with people who's loyaltys go back many generations and hold blood feuds with other people For an example, There was this city in Helmand Province Afghanistan that had an insurgent issue. Some foreign fighters came to fight us. The city was getting pissed because they were setting IED's but some were blowing their own people up. That city was made up mostly of 2 sects that had issues with etchother. We stepped in and took out the insurgents and they were happy. After a while we left but came back a month later to discover the town was abandoned. Turns out that with the insurgents gone the two groups went back to fighting and they killed etch-other off. The survivors were so few they just left. In our minds we may look at that as a city, the town as one group. But it was 3 'tribes' each with their own loyalty's. We can put the label on it to talk about it but it does not change the way that society interacted and our intervention ended up costing dozens of lives of those we 'say' we were there to protect Anyways.. Im rambling. But I have quite a bit of personal experience over there and can't help but feel like that entire situation should have been expected. In that war we fought them and they used the weapons we gave them to fight the russians to do it. In the next we will fight them again with the weapons we gave them. The capitalistic war machine keeps grinding out the tax dollars and the objective isn't to win. Peace is bad for business imo.

Politicians are scrambling to figure out how they can manipulate how the information is presented to keep them in power while the weapons manufacturers are pushing their lobbyists to get those in power to get that war machine running again Or that is how I see it anyways

I can see how it's possible that we in the west are labeling everyone over there too much.

What I can't quite follow is the "peace if bad for business" statement in combination with politicians.
The military is funded by the money of tax payers. Choosing to spend that money on military gives no money to the politicians, goverment or country. (other than maybe it giving you access to oil or something)

"Taliban" is an ideology (a school/interpretation of Islam), not a group. Also, "they [Afghans] are a very tribal people"... uh, I'm not sure that's a valid point lol. I'm not even sure "they" are one people to begin with, although that would have to be history fact-checked. Some are very happy with tribal organization, some are far from that (don't tell me people in Kabul, Herat or whatever other big city there is in Afghanistan are very tribal, that's utterly false).

The "label" part is somewhat true since talibans are simply demonized by the US, as can be seen in military propaganda movies, for example. However, the answer is a little oversimplified: it's not true that the talibans are nothing organized. There's a general agreement of guerilla warfare, and there are founders of the movement (hence why there are people going to lead the new government). It's not a super strict organization of course, and it will still be civil war once the "Western problem" is gone for them, but it still is an organization, as the anonymous author even recognized later - this part seems contradictory with the rest. It seems that was written out of resent for the very simplistic and inaccurate label "talibans are Hell's army of evil muslims" views more than out of an intent to grasp the concept, which is understandable, but not so enlightening.

As for "peace is bad for business", remember how WW2 got the US out of the Great Depression. They manufactured weapons, a LOT of weapons. That, and access to oil or something, as you said, but I don't know enough about the area to say for sure.

[Helz]

"Taliban" is an ideology (a school/interpretation of Islam), not a group. Also, "they [Afghans] are a very tribal people"... uh, I'm not sure that's a valid point lol. I'm not even sure "they" are one people to begin with, although that would have to be history fact-checked. Some are very happy with tribal organization, some are far from that (don't tell me people in Kabul, Herat or whatever other big city there is in Afghanistan are very tribal, that's utterly false).

The "label" part is somewhat true since talibans are simply demonized by the US, as can be seen in military propaganda movies, for example. However, the answer is a little oversimplified: it's not true that the talibans are nothing organized. There's a general agreement of guerilla warfare, and there are founders of the movement (hence why there are people going to lead the new government). It's not a super strict organization of course, and it will still be civil war once the "Western problem" is gone for them, but it still is an organization, as the anonymous author even recognized later - this part seems contradictory with the rest. It seems that was written out of resent for the very simplistic and inaccurate label "talibans are Hell's army of evil muslims" views more than out of an intent to grasp the concept, which is understandable, but not so enlightening.

As for "peace is bad for business", remember how WW2 got the US out of the Great Depression. They manufactured weapons, a LOT of weapons. That, and access to oil or something, as you said, but I don't know enough about the area to say for sure.

For context that quoted copy-paste was a bit of my ramblings in a discord serious/politics chat from a few weeks back.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

For context that quoted copy-paste was a bit of my ramblings in a discord serious/politics chat from a few weeks back.

I kinda guessed it was that :P