Afghanistan is Fucked
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- garbage
Afghanistan is fucked.
The US didn't defeat Taliban, they created and enabled it. Reagan's America, the UK and other western countries funded and trained the Afghan mujahideen, which were mostly Sunni youth that were displaced by the Soviet-Afghan war. They were radicalized in Pakistan and marched back into Afghanistan as tools for a proxy war against the Soviets. Look up Operation Cyclone, where the CIA funneled billions into this effort, resulting in a opium market that I'm not even going to bother touching.
Fast forward a bit to post 9/11 times when Taliban offered up Bin Laden if the US would cease bombing. Friendly reminder he was not Taliban and likely in Pakistan the whole time.
GWB could have had OSL on a platter. He refused. Obama refused to leave. Trump was too incompetent to leave. Cue 20 more years of war for profit. PMCs made more money in Afghanistan than Haliburton made in Iraq.
No big surprise when the bandaid is pulled off and it's still a massive shitstorm. Incoming Afghan Civil War 2 between Taliban and every flavor of ISIS, with both shitty being funded by superpowers while civilians are squeezed in the middle.
Dollars to donuts: China is getting the lithium.
- cannonball19780
<Afghan
China isn't getting the lithium without a railroad and heavy mining operations. That's not going to happen without serious security, local training, capital investments in machinery, and political unanimity. Dollars to donuts the Taliban will factionalize over the details.
Mujahideen were around Pre-Regan.
- Joe Rogan Approved!utopian
- Rambo III would like to thank the brave mujahideen fighterssausages
- Never said that Reagan made the Mujahideen, but the CIA backing them (specifically the Peshawar 7) led to this.garbage
- And China has been building cities in Africa for shits and giggles. I don't think they're going to bat an eye at slapdash rail and mining operations.garbage
- Its not the building it, it’s the keeping it secure, thats the problem.cannonball1978
- Future headlines: "Chinese PMC/PSC's maintain security on African railways." The DOD estimates China is already paying between 20-40 Blackwaters..garbage
- ..to operate internationally. There are over 7000 PSC's that do active domestic work in China. Just to be clear: that's seven thousand individual companies.garbage
- If China starts to fuck about, they are going to fuck about. I don't think a railway is their biggest worry.garbage
- https://www.csis.org…garbage
- _niko2
Yeah Garbage, shitstorm indeed, and it’s only going to get worse, the pentagon top brass is already talking supporting the Taliban in an effort to eradicate ISIS-K and other radical groups.
We’ve come full circle.
- There's really no way to gauge how it's going to shake out. It's going to be Caliphate squabbles all over again.garbage
- The US "accidentally" left about $80B worth of military tech to the taliba n...
< For this very reason probablygrafician - Not quite accurate. They left behind tons of guns and gear, but sabotaged most of the vehicles. Taliban thought they were going to inherit an airforce.garbage
- They got peashooters, carrier plates, and a bunch of destroyed / disabled aircraft.garbage
- https://www.youtube.…garbage
- Milan2
- Wow, history repeats itself to a tee._niko
- He who wins the war, funds both sides.AQUTE
- @niko: the brits were there decades before doing the exact same thinghans_glib
- Literal centuries of this shit. I'm curious / slightly terrified about what happens when China flexes.garbage
- China moved in already...https://ww...uan
- https://www.theatlan…uan
- Nothing new, China sold arms in the past to afghan and pakistani against soviet occupationOBBTKN
- China has always been there, now they're not hiding and doing business directly with the TalibanOBBTKN
- Danish-1
Taliban got some new gear..
- colin_s0
tbh i have respect for the resolve of afghans if nothing else. they've had every empire on the face of the earth tread on their ground and have battled them back every time.
part of this is all just the framing of the conversation. yes the taliban are there but it's the result of decades, or centuries, of imperialism trying to fuck with that region of the world. any country that has empires invading as hobby is bound to have militants running around.
yes, situation is fucked there now but in terms of murderous governments it's not like the united states has any moral high ground over the taliban
- china is welcome to try next i bet they get the same result as the rest.colin_s
- The taliban would exist regardless. That entire region has been slaughtering each other for millenniaGnash
- Gnash - how does that explain WWI and WWII?SlashPeckham
- ^ Did I suggest that no one else engaged in war?Gnash
- Apologies I read ‘region’ as ‘religion’SlashPeckham
- grafician-2
^
"The Taliban declare China their 'principal partner' in the international community
China is the Taliban’s “principal partner” in the international community, the Islamist group has said in its strongest signal yet of diplomatic priorities.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Thursday claimed Beijing was "ready to invest in and reconstruct" Afghanistan as he set out hopes that China would provide a gateway into global markets"
- I guess the taliban hate the Uyghurs, tooGnash
- Sure, it's all rosy now.
Now.Nairn - @Gnash yeah, really wondering too how that goes politically for them
also chyna puttimng their hands on all that US tech left behindgrafician - There are only approx 3000 Uyghurs that have escaped into Afghanistan, but I'm sure this isn't good news for them.garbage
- US didn't leave any valuable tech in Afghanistan - it was all stuff they were happy to give to Afghanis anyway.Nairn
- The most advanced things there were Blackhawk helicopters - which US sold to China ages ago and China since copied.
https://en.wikipedia…Nairn - https://www.youtube.…garbage
- Footage of them trying to fly said Blackhawks. Unclear if they are disabled or it's a PEBCAK thing.garbage
- Nairn1
So I've said it before - "It's China's problem now".
But I've just realised something fundamentally different between China and all relevant Western countries. Something *incredibly* obvious, but I'd never thought about before...
Chinese, especially Han Chinese, are known for being massively homogenous. So? This makes it really fucking difficult for non-Han terrorists to operate domestically within China.
In the West, terrorists can blend into ethnic minorities and operate without much notice. Much harder to pull this off when no cunt looks like you.
The only relief I see in all this is thta pretty much every other cunt in Asia is heavily side-eying China and has no love for their ascendancy.
Perhaps it wouldn't be a terrible thing for the West/NATO/etc to just sack it off for a couple of decades. Put all that cash into healthcare and education instead... .
- mg331
This is a really good Twitter thread about the history of ever gonna stand and the regions that are so important to trade in the past that continue to be fought over.
- SlashPeckham1
Bitter Lake is a good place to start researching this
- utopian0
As China woos the Taliban, Uyghurs in Afghanistan fear for their lives.
- PhanLo-1
Talibandito with RPA Rangemaster .50 Cal precision rifle in Afghanistan. Very rare to see Taliban with .50 cal rifles. Coincidentally it's also used by the Pakistan Army.
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- OBBTKN1
Afghanistan in the '70s
- Thanks allahGnash
- Better but those heavy brows are intimidating....shapesalad
