Afghanistan -is leaving the right thing?

[Notch7]

troops leaving now means Taliban take over country again.

20 years
many lives lost
$2 trillion cost

I really dont know -I actually think its unwinnable and military intervention by the West cant really help.

It would be really interesting from somebody with military experience for more insight

 

[transam]

Not much the UK can do on its own

as I under stand it the UK did look into some type of coalition with other nato ( ?) countries

zero interest

 

[Mottie]

Call me a cynic but maybe they would never have been invaded if the west had realised where Afghanistan was on this list…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves

 

[Munroast]

Should have just built a giant wall around its perimeter and let them get on with it. None of our business what ever they want to do in their own country.

 

[ellal]

Call me a cynic but maybe they would never have been invaded if the west had realised where Afghanistan was on this list…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves

Afghanistan does have on the other hand large resources of rare earth materials..

And of course a few poppy fields...

The Taliban tend to rely on the latter!

 

[Mottie]

The Taliban tend to rely on the latter!

That’s religion for you. I don’t believe in it, thank God.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

It would be really interesting from somebody with military experience for more insight

Get out. Stay the feck out. I speak as a veteran of my school's combined cadet force.

 

[sxturbo]

It's all the Russians fault.

Then the Americans fault for arming the guerilla Afghan army, which then morphed into Taliban,

I don't know what it is with religion why it makes extreme fanatics, the Muslim faith appears to be the worst for this.

I don't think it's right for us to pull out, and it's for this reason that the locals didn't want us there in the first place.

Really we need another 20 years out there preparing the military and building the economy,

Forcing the Taliban to wait even longer will weed them out eventually they will become too old to fight, or realise they have nothing to fight for any longer.

 

[charliegolf]

Japanese Knotweed. Keep on top of it and all is well. Take your eye off it for a few weeks, and you're back to where you started. So it is with the Taliban. The best saying I've read to sum it up is, "You have the fancy watches, but we have the time."

The West is either all in all the time, or it really wasn't worth the lives. The military suppliers won't agree, of course.

 

[ellal]

I don't know what it is with religion why it makes extreme fanatics, the Muslim faith appears to be the worst for this.

Have you forgotten the 'crusades'?

Care to tell us which 'religion' instigated that?

 

[JP_]

Rory Stewart made a good point re GB pulling out - things we under control, no British troops had been killed in years (6?) and we were maintaining stability without interfering with government. But now it's all been thrown away.

Hard one to call though.

 

[charliegolf]

Have you forgotten the 'crusades'?

Care to tell us which 'religion' instigated that?

You do get that it's the 21st century, don't you?

 

[JP_]

Have you forgotten the 'crusades'?

Care to tell us which 'religion' instigated that?

If you tally up all deaths from religious fuelled wars and persecution, the Christians are still a long way ahead of everybody else.

About 6 million people killed during the 9 crusades alone. That legacy will take a long time to die, maybe never.

 

[jeds]

It's no win - in both senses. When British and US troops were there the outcry was why are they there? Get them out. Now they are out the outcry is; why are they not there, why did they leave? It's also no win on the ground. Conventional military cannot defeat tribal nomads in their own environment. You might get on top for a while but the truth is you can't sustain that for ever.

The losers are the local people that just want to get on with their lives without persecution. Particularly the women.

 

[ellal]

You do get that it's the 21st century, don't you?

You do get that the problems we face relate to the past behaviour of the west, don't you?

Of course you don't, and that is the problem!