Power blackout in Kabul

[bearsfootball516]

Link to tweet

?s=21

It won’t be long now until Kabul falls.

[AkFemDem]

4. The problem is they're not like ants...

You can’t just kill the queen and the colony falls. There’s always another man waiting to step up to fill the vacancy. You can not scare or intimidate new leadership in a group that routinely and voluntarily uses suicide bombers as a rational tool.

[roamer65]

5. Eventually they won't.

Not when it means a death sentence.

We need to just keep doing it.

It’s called asymmetric warfare.

[Rustyeye77]

22. +1000

[kysrsoze]

2. That whole place is fucked - always ha been. Should have never been there.

[maxsolomon]

14. "Never"? Should we have been there after 9/11?

Should we just have let Al Qaeda continue to operate unmolested?

Lots of Absolutism on DU about this topic.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. "Lots of Absolutism on DU about this topic."

Amen!!

[Elessar Zappa]

24. Once we cleared out the Al Qaeda training camps

we should have left. Nation-building rarely succeeds.

[maxsolomon]

32. Ok, that is a legit position.

It's not "never", though. Lots of "we should never have" on DU; 9/11 was a pretty good reason.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

36. Sadly those in the White House had their eyes set on Baghdad, not Kabul.

I guess there was no one saying concentrate on helping Afghanistan’s people to opt for civilization rather than this patriarchal suicide squad. Instead Rumsfeld and Company did untold damage to this country and the Middle East.

"Fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan made several tentative steps toward modernization in the mid-20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, some of the biggest strides were made toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle, while trying to maintain a respect for more conservative factions. Though officially a neutral nation, Afghanistan was courted and influenced by the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War, accepting Soviet machinery and weapons, and U.S. financial aid...."

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/07/afghanistan-in-the-1950s-and-60s/100544/

[quakerboy]

39. Why?

Bin laden was in Pakistan, the hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia.

Why was the takeover of afghanistan necessary?

[maxsolomon]

40. Bin Laden was NOT in Pakistan.

He was at Tora Bora, and escaped because we contracted the ground fighting out to Afghan militias.

Expelling the Taliban wasn't necessary, but that wasn't my question. My question was specifically about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

[quakerboy]

41. Purportedly

He was in Pakistan when he was found and killed. Thats the one location we know he was, assuming we believe all the governments involved.

Was there a reason for us to be there? We could have accepted the Talibans offer of having him turned over without having to send one soldier into danger. And if they failed to do so, we surely could have made use of one of our many drones or missiles to resolve the issue in a violent fashion, again without putting a single soldier in danger.

We had options and we chose the worst. We did not need to be there.

[maxsolomon]

42. Yes, he was tin Quetta when he was found and killed 10 years later. "Purportedly".

You said he was in Pakistan in the aftermath of 9/11, without citing anything other than your suspicion.

How would the Taliban have turned him over if he wasn't there?

Force was inevitable, because Al Qaeda baited us with 9/11. That was the strategy: drag us into unwinnable wars in the Middle East. It worked.

[quakerboy]

43. What I indicated was that we know where he was when our troops killed him

the unsaid but implied part being that we dont actually know where he was at any given time prior to that, we can only make best guesses.

But regardless.. we didnt need to be there. We chose to be, it was not inevitable. I had a guy on my freshman dorm floor that baited me several times to try to get me to participate in a little pre fight club fight club they held in the hallway. I chose not to participate.

[applegrove]

3. Oh my god. Vibes to all in Afghanistan with the exception of the Taliban.

[secondwind]

6. Bet we did that...

[Rustyeye77]

7. hopefully

[bearsfootball516]

8. It would make sense.

Our way of making sure the Taliban doesn’t get to the airport before we evacuate.

[ancianita]

28. Likely.

Glad you thought of this because it seems to fit how our military handles these things. Our military has more night goggles than the locals.

[FormerRepukeR]

9. Crap and I'm partially at fault here...

I believed Bush and all those fucking asshole, and well, its so far away is what I thought, and I didn't care.

Sandy Hook, doesn't happen that often was my rational, but now they're openly trying to kill kids, and that was it. I've had enough. Fuck those lying repukes that caused all this and are now trying to blame it on you democrats!

FUCK THEM AND THE FUCKING HORSE THEY RODE IN ON!!!

sorry, but im really pissed

[bearsfootball516]

11. Bush's approval was in the 90s in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

The vast majority of Americans thought it was the right thing to do.

Hindsight is 20/20.

[FormerRepukeR]

19. yeah, you're right, but

I'm still not going to take a pass on it. I was fucking wrong, and I know it.

If I was the only asshole around, it wouldn't be as big of a problem, but there are millions more out there

and they're all still stupid!

Believe me, you could write a book on my friends and family, and it would not be pretty.

[relayerbob]

34. Welcome and hopefully there are a lot more like you..

that just aren't as willing to be as open about it.

[Evolve Dammit]

33. We had the world; the whole world on our side after 9-11 and Bush pissed it away. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

16. Try not to turn that rage on yourself, and grant yourself some grace

for being strong enough to make the kind of change you would like to see in the world.





And welcome to DU.

[FormerRepukeR]

21. Thank you, but

the ironic part is that it's this Covid thing that changed me.

I'm retired, and I've had a lot of free time lately because of Covid.

I've spent a lot of time doing research on UFOs and Sasquatch, and I consider myself pretty damn good at it. My goal was to try to find holes in the reports, but there are some that are very puzzling, and that's all I'll say about it.

Anyway, because of some of my successes in researching those myths, I figured finding evidence to prove the repukes right would be easy.

That never happened. There's nothing out there except bullshit and willful misinterpretation.

Hell, some UFO encounters have more validity then their crap.

But, the thing that floored me --to my very soul-- was when I figured out that the only ones telling the fucking truth were you democrats, and then they started openly going after the children. It's like a Stephen King novel going on live right in front of us, but you want to know what the really scary part is?

The real scary part is that it took me so fucking long to figure it out.

[Elessar Zappa]

25. Welcome!

I like UFOs and Big Foot too lol. It may or may not be all bullshit but it’s interesting nonetheless.

[FormerRepukeR]

26. I researched it like it was all fake

Most of it WAS crap, but there are some cases that are just creepy as hell.

Unfortunately, I didn't follow that same protocol while listening to Bush and the original Death Cult.

[Tommymac]

27. Welcome to the Big Tent

We have our own 3 Ring Circus inside...but at least it is reality based and focused on Life not Death.

[lpbk2713]

18. Welcome to DU.

Pull up a chair.

[FormerRepukeR]

23. Thank you

[stillcool]

10. we lost power here last night

something in the air?

[Generic Brad]

12. Do you have Taliban surrounding your neighborhood?

[TheBlackAdder]

13. Amrican Taliban, Vanilla ISIS, Y'all Qaeda, etc. Pick one?

[Generic Brad]

15. Sounds like my neighborhood

I feel for you.

[stillcool]

17. I don't think so, but

I live in a blue-state.

[bucolic_frolic]

29. That country has been under attack, occupation, for 40 years

by superpowers, and now the Taliban. The destruction, inhumanity. The world should feel shame.

[littlemissmartypants]

35. More like 40 centuries but I get your drift. nt

[irisblue]

30. How many Marines are in Kabul today?

[relayerbob]

31. I recall being out protesting this and the Iraq war

Huge, predictable failures. Completely preventable. No matter how long we stay, the outcome will be the same when it ends.

And don't think for a moment Russia isn't supplying the Taliban. We helped push them out of Afghanistan, and was part of the eventual collapse of the USSR. Putin wants revenge.

[littlemissmartypants]

38. Glad to see another peacenik here. It feels like most of us have gone extinct.

Everyone is wondering why the Afghan citizens are giving up on fighting and have no will to protect their own country.

Aside from the corruption which is an inherent feature of the culture, my theory is that they can tell a gravy train when they see it. As the American money disappears they're like Ariana Grande, "Next." Here come Pakistan and Putin. I suspect China isn't far behind.

There are the heroin poppy assets to exploit, of course. But there are also too many rare earth minerals in those craggy mountains. Someone's eventually going to get their greedy hands on them. Not to mention all of the precious metals and gemstones that have been mined for hundreds of years. Value estimates on just the rare earth minerals run close to a trillion dollars with total mineral wealth is estimated at almost three trillion.

In depth article

https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/afghanistans-mineral-resources-are-a-lost-opportunity-and-a-threat/

Reference post

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1133&pid=29623

[Dorian Gray]

37. Oh those poor people

I can't imagine the horror and fear they're feeling. The Taliban..... just ugh.