US and Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan...- threadbanned users in OP

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811001#Comment_117811001

How many Afghans have specifically expressed a desire to travel to Ireland? The numbers are likely to be tiny. It's hardly a surprise that those who 'do' want to leave would want to go to a country where they have relations.

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811754#Comment_117811754

I doubt it. There would still have been a massive run on the airport once people figured what was going on. The moment the Afghan government and military began to implode, a humanitarian disaster became all but unavoidable. Could a couple of hundred foreign nationals have gotten out earlier? Possibly, but looking at the way things played out, it probably would have triggered an even earlier collapse of the authorities in the country.

The one thing that could potentially have changed things would have been to keep at least one other air base outside of Kabul until the absolute last possible moment, preferably one in a remote location, and running evacuation flights from there as well. That would have distributed the stream of potential evacuees over multiple sites and would have given a second way out for key personnel.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811776#Comment_117811776

That's what total panic does to you. Plus, without wanting to sound arrogant or demeaning, a lot of those people probably had no idea just how much force a 300 km/h+ slipstream will have. Many probably never saw a C-17, or any large aircraft, up close, particularly if they're from some of the more remote regions of the country.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117811962#Comment_117811962

I wonder did the poor divils have a moment like this after the plane took off

tobefrank321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117810536#Comment_117810536

People get caught up with numbers. Its more of a presence that matters. The US troops were not in the frontline and so numbers didn't really matter.

What is more important is a commitment and also air power which is hugely important. As well as a couple hundred trainers, some intelligence people and good communications to give the Afghan army a chance to fight a fair fight.

Once that support was removed they had no chance.

The US could conceivably have held off the Taliban for years with help from the Afghan army with a very small US force. That might have been enough time to get a proper peace deal.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117812313#Comment_117812313

That wasn't the deal that was made with the Taliban directly in 2018. Full exit was the deal.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117812313#Comment_117812313

The US could conceivably have held off the Taliban for years with help from the Afghan army with a very small US force. That might have been enough time to get a proper peace deal.

But what sort of deal? The Taliban aren't interested in give-and-take; they want control of the country and obviously had no intention of sticking to the terms of their deal with Trump.

Patrick2010

Watching the 6 o clock news, 2 lads clearly from Afghanistan but saying they are Irish. Why did they fly to Afghanistan after getting asylum in Ireland?

fly_agaric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117812461#Comment_117812461

Gonna be cynical...but I think that type of thing could happen (people going back to country they fled for a visit) because most "asylum seeking" is a kind of "economic migration" and the whole system is a bit of a farce now and out of date IMO.

There's literally 100s of millions of poor people in violent and corruptly run 3rd world countries (like Afghanistan) who badly want into the West. The disparities of wealth and living standards in this world are quite bad, and it is in everyone's face now too because of the internet & cheap mobile devices. I think it's very, very hard to get a visa/residency for a rich country in a normal way if you are from an undeveloped part of the world with poor education etc. No hope. One way in is claiming "asylum"...after all even if you are not *specifically* in danger, under threat of violence/war or being persecuted by the state, you are in more danger of such things in a poor 3rd world country.

Of course after you have that residence in Ireland or whatever, there's probably still times you'll badly want to go home. Alot of your family are there too...and you can do it because you were not specifically in danger (and our world is alot smaller a place when it comes to travelling than it was at the end of WW2, when I think alot of these ideas and laws about seeking asylum were codified). Going home isn't as bad as living there because you also bring with you your rich western country citizen purchasing power to command respect, pay bribes, smooth the way etc. And of course you can just leave if there's trouble (or even have the Irish defense forces/Dept. of foreign affairs spend a small fortune and call in multiple favours from other governments to spirit you back out!)

jay0109

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117812461#Comment_117812461

At a time when there are are up to 400 Afghan's in the Irish Asylum process, there's a couple of hundred Afghan's who managed to get Irish residence status/passports (most I would get guess after going through the asylum system here and somehow getting status) that have gone back to Afghanistan for holidays/family visits.

You couldn't make it up! Well you could I suppose, after all, it's the Irish asylum process at the heart of it.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117812953#Comment_117812953

You're mixing up refugees / asylum seekers and 'migrants'. Considerable numbers of people leave their home country simply to better themselves or to get out of poverty. Afghans who have been returning to their home country from Ireland to visit family are almost certainly straightforward migrants who left Afghanistan voluntarily and who are not refugees.

Kermit.de.frog

Reuters reporting the US is preparing retaliation strikes on ISIS targets in Afghanistan within the next few days after the evacuation is complete.

USS Ronald Regan, 2 warships and a strike sub are now off Pakistan and B52 bombers would be used as well.

Which leads to me to believe they may be looking at more than ISIS?

expectationlost

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117813412#Comment_117813412

show of force, its all they know how to do.

Kermit.de.frog

Aye like in WW1, WW2 and throughout the Cold War.

Thank god for the United States of America. Without that country the world would be quite the dictatorial place.

Freedom is not given. It's earned. And only one country has earned it and thankfully for the rest of us has placed a protective shield around us because we wouldn't and couldn't do it ourselves.

Europe owes it's democratic existence today to the United States and to this day defends Europe. Some forget or choose to play ignorant.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117813506#Comment_117813506

"and thankfully for the rest of us has placed a protective shield around us because we wouldn't and couldn't do it ourselves.

Europe owes it's democratic existence today to the United States. "

Meanwhile millions have been killed, countries torn apart and whole regions of the world have been devastated because of them.

You wouldn't be lauding them like this if you were from one of the many countries that they have ruined.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117813520#Comment_117813520

Where have they ruined? They take action to protect their interests which mostly align with ours.

Who else is going to do it?

YFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117810571#Comment_117810571

The security advisor?

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117813525#Comment_117813525

Well Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind. What interests were they protecting in those countries that has caused millions of needless deaths?

Joe_ Public

If you can sum up at all the last 20 years of US foreign intervention in the middle east, it is there for me in the press reports and discussions of the terrorist bombing the other day which killed a dozen or so US troops. It also killed over 100 Afghans but they are incidental to the story, collateral damage to be forgotten about once the body parts are collected and put out of sight. It bears out a very succinct like from the excellent Nasrine Malek in the guardian a few days ago: "For more than two decades, this has been the governing logic of the war on terror: US and British leaders make the 'difficult and brave' moral decisions, and then someone else worries about the consequences."

Incidentally, if we're going to salute America for saving the world during ww2, seems to me only fair we spare a thought for the Russians whose sacrifice unquestionably precluded a truly catastrophic outcome. And, in a weird way, maybe The Japanese too as, without the attack on Pearl Harbour, there's no guarantee when or if the US might have decided to join the battle arena in the first place. I get it's often easier to keep the narrative simple, broad brush strokes, winners and losers, good guys and bad guys etc. History can be a bit messy otherwise.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814131#Comment_117814131

Sure we might as well spare a thought for the Germans too while we're at it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117813506#Comment_117813506

WW1 was a war of empires, not ideologies... so it's hardly relevant to any of this. Had Germany/Austria-Hungary won, it wouldn't have changed much in the long scheme of things, although it might have staved off the rise of fascism and national socialism.

WW2 the US only entered when Germany DOW'd on them. In any case, it was the loss of life on the Eastern front that guaranteed the loss of the Axis. Even lend lease was paid for by the British, as opposed to any real altruistic desire by the US. Too much propaganda being thrown around about the importance of the US.

The Cold war? The Soviets didn't expand because they could barely hold what they had. Outside of that, the US failed in most theaters against the communists, except on the propaganda reels. Nukes in Turkey, and a variety of other nations around Russia, but it's shocking that the Communists might have nukes in Cuba? Yeah.. the double standards are well established when it comes to US foreign policy. Korea? Vietnam? Oh, yes, they did wonderful things during the Cold war.

And the US aimed to keep Europe weak and pliable rather than encouraging them to rebuild into a military force capable of competing with the US. Just as they did everything they could to reduce the imperial powers of the European nations, and therefore, reducing the ability to recover from WW2. Imagine if the investment put into Asia following WW2 had been poured into Britain or any of their allies? Meh. Oh, they did good, but always in the interests of the US.

I simply look at US involvement differently from you. It's not forgetting anything or choosing to be ignorant. It's recognising that the US are a superpower and superpowers do things for their own interests. Just as the British Empire did the same for a long period as the worlds main superpower. And as with the British, the US have destabilized many regions, supplies weapons and training to people who went on to kill people in their tens and hundreds of thousands, and engaged in their own mass destruction of civilian areas, whether that was the firebombing of wooden cities in Japan, the carpet bombing in Vietnam/Cambodia, or the drone strikes in the M.East. I'm also remembering their illegal seizure of innocents after Sept 11, and taking them to Guantanamo bay, avoiding the rights of those individuals and the laws of the US.

So, no... I'm not in any kind of rush to accept your post.

joseywhales

There's no doubt that the greatest contribution to allied victory in WW2 was by the Russians but then they really had to as the Germans were just a few miles from Moscow at one stage. Immediately after WW2 and for a decade or two, the soviets could have easily expanded throughout western Europe but they couldn't have held it, as we see occupation is significantly more difficult than military victory. Stalin's Soviet union was the most powerful force on earth, I think there's no doubt. Whatever nonsense the us have done since, there help with nato and defending a crippled Europe is much appreciated by me anyway. In the greater scheme of things we want to reach a point where countries and regions do not need such huge investment in military and wars become less frequent and intense. It doesn't help any of us ordinary people to live in a world where our tax dollars are spent on machines that are designed to kill us.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814506#Comment_117814506

Propaganda. That's the problem. The reality is that communist systems were/are full to the brim with corruption and mismanagement. Both in the military and in all arms of the economy. The Soviet army both during WW2 and after, had only a limited number of professional troops, instead mostly relying on conscripts, and irregulars. Stalin won through attrition, against an enemy fighting on multiple fronts. Even when they produced good tanks, it still ended up being a war of attrition... one that the Soviets would have been ill-prepared to continue in Europe or elsewhere, after all the deaths of WW2 and those who died in the camps.

As for invading Europe, doing so would have opened up their own borders for attacks, since their main forces have always been concentrated in the west. Even at the end of WW2, Stalin faced major problems with the diverse population of cultures within its borders, and while WW2 provided a patriotic war incentive, attacking the West wouldn't have. Thus opening up problems with insurrections, which is why he spent so long pacifying his own people... never mind the need to indoctrinate the population into being communists, which few were following the end of the war. The Soviets and the threat of communism was the threat that was promoted to justify the existance of the US military machine, and provide a wide range of customers for their arms manufacturing/selling. In reality, the Soviets were little threat to Europe.. and judging by what they did elsewhere, they didn't do much to support other communist nations such as in Vietnam, and never formed any close links with China.

In the grand scheme of things, we need to withdraw from many regions, so that all these people can bring about their own social, political and ideological change. You cannot enforce democracy or western culture on other national groups. It didn't work in Korea. It didn't work in Vietnam. It hasn't worked anywhere in the world, and invariably leads to more misery, either because tinpot dictators are put in power, or the fabric of the government are encouraged to be corrupt so that US operatives have more influence over them. Nor does it do much to change the minds and hearts of the people themselves. The M.East is more fundamentally Islamic now, than they were fifty years ago. The same can be said for large parts of Africa and Asia. Korea, and Japan while having elements of American culture, have both retained very Asian attitudes.

We need to step back and stop messing about in cultures that we barely understand. The illegal (they lied to the world after all) invasion of Iraq, destabilised the whole of the M.East, and has guaranteed that generations of Muslims will hate the West. Not just America, but all western nations.. that is what has been gained by all this. And it's going to happen again, because the US never learns the lessons from Vietnam, and now, the lesson of Afghanistan.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814867#Comment_117814867

Introducing democracy worked really well in Japan. Which just goes to show, that if you think there are problems which explosives can't fix, then you just havent used enough explosive.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814882#Comment_117814882

And it worked really well in Korea too. However, neither of them are western democracies, and have applied their own "feel" to the system. Their culture and traditional systems seriously influence how democracy happens in both nations. It's also important to consider who their enemies were and why they chose to cuddle up to the US. It also helped that both nations had no strong religious presence... which is not the case with Islamic countries, and Afghanistan has repeatedly shown that the amount of explosives used won't change their ability to resist foreign powers.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814506#Comment_117814506

Historians reckon the Red Army would have reached Berlin by early 1946 at the latest, even without D-Day. Unlikely though they would have wanted to occupy all of western Europe and turn it into being part of the Soviet Bloc (and they would have received massive resistance from the local populations given the culture clash).

The US has mostly been good for Europe and the EU. Those in the Middle East would clearly have their own views and strongly disagree.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814867#Comment_117814867

I agree with much of your post. However, I think your are not giving enough credit to the soviets. The fact is that they did inflict the most casualties on the Nazis. They did build better tanks. They may have won by attrition but they did win. The western front was there for the taking because the Nazis had to commit to this attritional war with the soviets. The fact that Stalin could coerce or convince so many human meat shields to die is a greater power than Europe could ever muster.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814954#Comment_117814954

Not to mention the millions in the lower Americas whose lives have been plunged into abject misery for decades by a procession of brutal right wing dictators propped up by US arms, dollars and military expertise. I very much doubt they'd fully share our perspective either.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814966#Comment_117814966

The allied tanks were pretty shoddy until the end of the war, and it was only the Russians/Germany who managed to produce consistently good tanks, fit for purpose. However, if you look at the cost cutting that went on when it came to Russian tanks, and the conditions that tank crews lived through, you would see that their tanks would have fallen behind (since by the end of the war, the allies were producing some decent medium/heavy tanks of their own).

Haha... America wasn't the deciding factor, Russia was. I said as much on the previous page, so I given the Soviets plenty of credit for what happened. The difference is that I'm aware of how their culture and economy operated... and the state of their military at the close of the war. Could they have been a realistic danger in the 50s or 60s? Sure, but not to the degree that the US or western propaganda made them out to be. They no longer had the numbers to commit to Human wave strategies, and by the 60s, infantry anti-tank weaponry was already becoming effective. And while European armies were lackluster in quality, the civilian populations in Europe had their own weapons, and often training to make up the difference.. which would have cost Russian lives not easily replaced.

The point being that Soviet Russia was never the threat that the propaganda showed them to be. To keep a population compliant, and your allies in line, it's awfully useful to have an enemy that appears more dangerous than he actually is. China is a similar enemy now, to justify US excesses.

BorneTobyWilde

Father killed in the bomb, BREAKS MY HEART

and so many Afghans say it was the shootout that killed so many, when there wasn't even a gunman, blaming the British forces for opening fire on the trench of people, slaughtering those caught up in the blast. And I believe them, THERE WAS NO GUNMEN.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117814966#Comment_117814966

Tbf the russians kind of had no real choice but to fight as the nazis would have killed em all....whereas in france etc,they were happy to occupy

Its easy enough motivate people,when if they dont win,them and their family are facing near certain genocide