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Afghanistan: Mission Accomplished

It does seem to be a popular victory in some ways. You don't take over a country in a week without having a large proportion of the people behind you.

Wasn’t Cromwell asked what he would do if he knew that 7 out of eight men in England stood against his ideas. “Put a gun into the hand of every eighth man”…
 
I have a fairly clear memory of (I think) John Simpson hanging out with the Northern Alliance doing a TV report in 2001 or thereabouts, and suddenly having to take cover because a ‘Taliban Jet’ entered the valley. Does that even sound plausible?
I definitely remember stuff about the Taliban having jets in the old days. Got them from Pakistan, presumably (and the eerie silence out of, and about, Islamabad, tells its own story).

It's not inherently implausible, a non-state actor having air capability. It does appear to be true that the USSR gave ZIPRA (Joshua Nkomo's faction) a Mig with which to fight the Rhodesians, but the Lancaster House agreement was signed before it could be deployed. And there's the Tamil Tigers adapting trainers to bomb oil refineries.

E2A: Of course the Taliban weren't non-state actors after 1996. Wikipedia says that they had five migs and ten sukhois.
 
Anyway….Biden seems to be taking a battering, has anyone got a suggestion as to how he could end this endless war without the current situation taking place?
 
But that's not what happening. It's you and a couple of others screaming 'Wibewal!' at anyone with anything more complicated to say than 'Taliban are bad'.

No it's not. You have said anything remotely complicated and neither have your sidekicks. Have to admit, that bellend Ska got close with the suggestion that British soldiers should face war crimes trials in The Hague for taking part in the invasion though.
 
No it's not. You have said anything remotely complicated and neither have your sidekicks. Have to admit, that bellend Ska got close with the suggestion that British soldiers should face war crimes trials in The Hague for taking part in the invasion though.
I haven't bothered because of the witchhunt on this thread. And you're the only poster on the boards with a genuine sidekick.
 
Silly post fixed.
I’m not convinced, to be honest. I’m sure there are indeed a lot of people very frightened of the Taliban. However, to control a country through fear on an ongoing basis requires a widescale infiltration of personal networks. Does the Taliban have people in every family that will shop their family members if they say subversive things?
 
I’m not convinced, to be honest. I’m sure there are indeed a lot of people very frightened of the Taliban. However, to control a country through fear on an ongoing basis requires a widescale infiltration of personal networks. Does the Taliban have people in every family that will shop their family members if they say subversive things?

I don't know if they do now, if they plan to, or plan not to bother but I'm not sure I agree with your premise anyway. Does every despotic regime require people in every family who will shop family members for subversion, to take and remain in power? Every family? Every such regime in history? Do you believe that even the Nazis had such people in every family? How about the Stasi and the KGB? In fact, I'd ask that you give just one example of a regime that had people prepared to grass subversives in every family.
 
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Anyway….Biden seems to be taking a battering, has anyone got a suggestion as to how he could end this endless war without the current situation taking place?
Whatever else could've been done differently the press will move on and totally ignore Afghanistan in a couple of weeks or so. Full blown civil war wouldn't change that
 
But that's not what happening. It's you and a couple of others screaming 'Wibewal!' at anyone with anything more complicated to say than 'Taliban are bad'.
If they’re fascist and you know it
But don’t really want to show it
If they’re fascist but they’re brown clap your hands

👏 👏
 
I think the army should be disbanded and all commissioned officers disposed of regardless of what conflicts they've taken part in.
And who’s going to do the ‘disposal’ you talk about? Just out of interest as a kind of thought experiment?
 
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