i wonder if the taliban generals there are the same barry freed

based taliban didnt they ban the vaccine?

how we feeling now that taliban took over afghanistan? government has fallen

Fall of Saigon all over again

20 years of war, lots of money, lots of deaths, U.S. training for the Afghan National Army, all for nothing

yeah seems weird to me

like i agree the war was bullshit and there was a lot of death

but don’t they realize just pulling out of afghanistan with no plan in place, is basically what happened in the early 2000s after sadam and what created ISIS?

Maybe that’s the point

hell why not destabilize the entire region on China’s border

the US is about to f*** this up, our military complex did an amazing job of reverting the entire country back into being bush-era neocons with anti-islam hysteria. biden really did take us back to 2015. we have hardcore liberals and hardcore conservatives on twitter shaking hands like "finally, we agree, we should have been more imperialistic...for uh, women's rights I guess or something."

The coverage about this has been absolutely disgraceful.
If the US does ANYTHING except normalize relations with the Taliban (WHICH WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE DONE - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE TRUMP-TALIBAN DOHA TREATY?) then its safe to say as a country our future is completely doomed to be further down the drain of foreign policy downspiraling. The US got embarrassed in Vietnam and now Vietnam has the highest approval rating of the US of virtually any country, and is a trade partner, and has US franchises there. Saudi Arabia, a literal theocratic monarchy, has basically largely liberalized due to biliteral economic and global economic recognition. Time and time again the US has basically shown that in order to win wars, you dont need to actually do anything, you just need to invite a country to engage in global capitalism and then wait like half a decade. If the US treats Islamic Afghanistan like Libya, Yemen, or Syria, then yeah its safe to say things are only going to get worse for us a country.

This is also regardless of what you think of market liberalization - you can be completely against it and still recognize that market liberalization has always worked to essentially bolster US international power even if inadvertently, so this is just from the perspective of that. Even if you don't believe that, like I'm not fully on board with it for my own reasons, its just objectively true there is virtually no reason to alienate the Taliban controlled government and make everything far worse both in Afghanistan and geopolitically. There really isnt any valid reason to not recognize them that isnt just a rehashed neocon agenda

it seems like a risky play if that’s what they are going for though

we are talking potential ISIS 2.0 here (although i hope not)

i’m usually hesitant to make historical parallels bc situations are always so different but yeah this one definitely fits the bill

that picture of the Chinook on top of the embassy is identical to that famous Fall of Saigon pic

doesnt really make any sense as a conspiracy under scrutiny since Afghan Taliban has no issues with china, only Pakistani TTP does which is a separate entity with only loose ties. if the US wanted to f*** up china, we would have either just stayed in Afghanistan or have focused on destabilizing Pakistan instead. afghanistan would have been more destablized and hostile to chinese influence had we stayed there, w/o the US and with it just controlled by the Taliban (which the majority of the rural afghan people agree with btw), there really isnt any reason to assume there'd be serious resistance to china

man its like no matter what, every year there’s something else to be stressed out about

it does get me thinking though, will the Taliban now be present at conferences like the G20? (i know afghanistan isn’t a part of that anyway but it’s still crazy to think about), or will they prefer to be isolated? or will they form alliances with our global enemies and use their new found place on the word stage to try and destabilize us even more? i’m sure they want some form of revenge on the US, especially when the excitement of coming to power wears off

Takeover the breaks over

The Afghan Taliban has always had the goal of establishing a legitimate functional government which simply functioned under a form of islamic rule - not incredibly dissimilar from pre-economic liberalization Saudi Arabia. Anyone who wanted to make it seem like they wanted to establish a terrorist/rogue state or similar is just lying out their ass or uniformed from propaganda. Do they have very bad social practices, especially treatment of women? Sure. Do they want to establish a global caliphate through terrorism? No.
One of the biggest differences between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban (TTP) is that the Afghan Taliban is essentially a mix of Pashto Tribal Codes w/ Islamic Law, but the idea has always been to just establish an Afghan state in their image - it has never been to, say, mimick the conquest of ISIS or anything even remotely similar. This is more of an ethnic/religious conflict the US waded into inadvertently due to revolving beliefs in the Taliban and regional connections (which were eventually severed anyway) to Al-Qaeda, in reality the Taliban were simply a different state, hence why they already had the heirarcy of speakers, ministers, presidents, etc. with many of them abroad in Qatar. They are not isolationist either, hence why they were willing to meet with Chinese Diplomats, or were originally willing to meet with Trump's diplomats at Doha (which again, the lack of reporting on past said treaty is suspicious to me. Does the treaty exist or not?). The Taliban literally does not care about the US because its concerns were always domestic. Anyone who says they want instant revenge is buying into media fearmongering speculation. What they want is the US to normalize ties with them more than anything, hence, again, the origin and willingness of the Doha treaty.
That said I can completely see the UN excommunicating their government and the bloc of western countries blacklisting them which will completely f*** up literally everything for everyone everywhere

Trump drafted the agreement that directly caused this but this was inevitable

you seen those pics of insane weapon stashes that the military has just been leaving

they've been able to mobilize two helicopters too

It was inevitable but sad

I’m curious to see where they go though. Never seen the US get humiliated to the level they have here. Can’t even pull any excuses like Vietnam

yup, the U.S. is bombing leftover Afghan supplies so Taliban won't get their hands on them

Leaving in the middle of the night without letting the Afghan commander know...U.S. MIlitary had no faith in the Afghan troops to hold back the Taliban.