Afghanistan!

[SleeplessinSoCal]

What we have known since 1980 is you can't defeat Afghanis. Never ever. If you believe you can change the mindset of an eons old culture, you are incredibly arrogant. I think it's their singular source if pride.

I'm only hearing and reading about this proven truth from a political POV. SUCH IS OUR MEDIA.

And as a woman, I'm even upset by our many female journalists who don't acknowledge the age old problem of patriarchy and theocratic minded activists. Be it our Christian Taliban or Afghanistan’s, their beliefs never wane. And aren't we exhausted from trying to fight that? Look to our own house and our Suorene Court. It's Talibanesque.

What a stupid way to spend life on planet Earth. Fighting for what is in our heads.

I'm only hearing and reading about this proven truth from a political POV. SUCH IS OUR MEDIA.


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/

P.s. I'm posting this to counter what I think are too many Trump and fluff stories in GD. What happened to DU's fighting spirit? We can't give in because we won in November. And sharing so many Trump stories is a repeat of 2016. WE CANNOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN!

[bullimiami]

1. Any effort to oppose the Taliban was lost when Trump backstabbed the Kurds.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

3. I don't think the Taliban gives a fig about the Kurds.

Our callous treatment of the Kurt's under -45 is blemish on top of a scar on top of a self-inflicted wound.

Patriarchy is the common denominator. And how do we deal with malignant patriarchy.

[bullimiami]

6. Not now but they were a big problem for them before.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

7. I'm confused.

I thought it was Iraq. Either way, our hubris knows no bounds.

[Corgigal]

5. And the media didn't even care,

because they weren’t there. Trump did it for his friends in Turkey.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Men with weapons, fighting for control, land and resources.

And for the fun of killing, maiming, raping others.

Humans are not evolving much at all.

[Moostache]

4. Unless you are willing to kill them all, they will not give in or be beaten...

We have spent 20 years and TRILLIONS of dollars and got exactly nowhere.
Afghans are gonna Afghan...and Americans (nor anyone else) are not going to change that.

So, unless you favor nuclear annihilation of the country, why would we want to keep poking that dead horse longer?

You know who "conquered" the Afghans? Alexander the Great.
Know how he did it?:

....Alexander was not a near relative of the Afghans. Like the Americans, he came as a hated foreigner, regarded with contempt as unclean, an infidel.

....Alexander, from 330 until 327 BC, systematically conquered the country by the most ruthless exercise of military force. Then having conquered the Afghans, he won their hearts. Alexander married, as his first wife, Roxanne, the daughter of the Afghan warlord, Oxyartes. Alexander then conciliated all the other warlords of Afghanistan. His firstborn son and heir to his great empire would be an Afghan and Alexander made the Afghans full partners in his great new world.

What Alexander did not try to do was to force Greek customs and Greek values, like democracy, upon the Afghans. He not only allowed them to keep their customs, he adopted the customs of the Afghans and the Persians. Alexander became a national hero to the Afghans, who still invoke with awe the name of Skander (Alexander).

https://bigthink.com/learning-from-the-past/afghanistan-the-lessons-of-history

[SleeplessinSoCal]

8. Afghanistan: One of the earliest farming nations..

From Wikipedia: "Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.

After the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up to northeast Afghanistan, it was inhabited by the Iranic tribes and controlled by the Medes until about 500 BC when Darius the Great (Darius I) marched with his Persian army to make it part of the Achaemenid Empire. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded the land after defeating Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela."