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.