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

If only Afghan had oil! They would be like Saudi now . Really strict laws similar to taliban but wouldn’t be invaded

Never mind the Blackhawks. Luckily the Americans didn't ship the massive order that is still stateside.

The Mi-8/Mi-17s are of way more use in Afghanistan as they can carry greater loads, fly higher and now that the yanks are out of the picture they can readily get spares.

Ditto for any of the Mi-35s that they managed to capture like the one presented by India to Afghanistan that was captured last week in Konduz.

BTW that has really pi**ed off the Indians no end.

There were also load of MD 530Fs that were in Afghanistan that may have fallen into their hands.

No one really knows how many have been captured or how many were used by the Afghans to get to hell out of Dodge.

A fair few legged it to Uzbekistan, etc

An Uzbek government official has confirmed that 46 aircraft, including 22 fixed wing and 24 helicopters, and 585 Afghan airmen and soldiers had fled to Uzbekistan by air after the fall of Kabul.

The question is whether they may have to repatriate the kit back to the Taliban to maintain good relations with the new rulers of their neighbouring state.

BTW a lot of people here have been disparaging of the Afghans, the Taliban as having no fighting ability.

Yet here we are looking at another superpower legging it.

Never ever underestimate your enemy.

Also got to catch most of a very good documentary on al jazeera the other night that was following an Afghan army unit fighting the Taliban.

It was pretty eye opening.

They were sent into area to fight and told they would be a day, but were still there 45 days later.

One of the gripes some of them had was that they hadn't been paid in months.

They woke up one morning to find the police compound that was nearby has been abandoned during the night to the Taliban leaving all the weaponary and a new platform to attack them.

Eventually they had to pull out with wounded and very low ammunition.

You felt sorry for them because in affect they were being abandoned by the powers that be and as their commander said most of them were poor guys from some village that returned home wrapped in a flag.

And the Americans and British must have known that it was all a house of cards built on sand because the connected ones had lined their pockets.

Afghanistan's first railway was constructed only 10 years ago to link up with Uzbekistan and thus Russia to get minerals out.

Supposedly Afghanistan has lots of mineral resources and also could be conduit for gas pipelines from central Asia down to Pakistan and India.

They have 10 or 12 copper mines. They have baryte which yields barium. They have chromite that can yield chromium.

The US estimated they are sitting on a trillion dollars of untapped minerals.

Now not sure what is Taliban's stance on foreign mining operations?

A probably dumb question but if the likes of Dublin Airport was still running at about 10k pax per day in December 2020 (amid Covid conditions), I'm a little confused as to why it's taking so long to get those waiting at Kabul out? Surely it'd be easier and safer to simply load the planes to the gills, transport everyone to a safe harbour and sort out visa entitlements there?

Any airline worth their salt is not going to go near Kabul. There are specialist airlines (eg: Omni, Atlas Air) that contract to the military and are well versed in operating into warzones. The only recent exception has been a DOD order requiring a very small number of aircraft from a handful of US airlines to operate rescue flights. I would expect these to be flown by reservists and no doubt they will be tooled up, there is already existing provisions for certain US pilots to carry firearms.

a bit late now since they were hiding for the last 20 years

He was the prime minister the Brits needed but didn't deserve. Lost out in the popularity contest because let's face it he is a bit weird and looks a bit weird for most ordinary people's taste. What a pity though, to get Boris over an honest, intelligent, humble guy like that. You should listen to his great speech on the hedgehog in the commons.

It's one of the best speeches I've ever seen.

Is it not deliberate, rather than fecklessness? The Irish defence forces are afaik very underfunded in all aspects, have been for decades (counting from the period post 90s or so where country could afford to resource them better) and Irish public and politicians want it like that. I can't really recall any recent politician mentioning them or their work or what they might need to do their job. So that interview is a first for me. Ireland believes our being "neutral" is all about about skimping on the budget for them as much as possible. You don't do that by spending alot of money on having military transport planes on hand + no doubt an expensive supporting infrastructure to maintain & run them.

Went on a charter flight to from Dublin to Spain about 15 years ago, operated by Omni Air International. I still remember how harsh the take off was, and that the pilot must have been used to flying into Kabul.

It would be 2 sided issue for most part ,one side can say we're sending 100 people back to Afghanistan or elsewhere but they can also say no were not allowing people to be returned , which means what ever country they land in is responsible for them ,who in turn could say sorry we didn't fly them here so we're not taking them ,,

Ironic isn't it, considering also the links between Al Qaeda, Audi Arabia and 9/11

I honestly think, he just felt that the more power he can obtain the more change he can make based on his life experience but obviously he ignored the fact that you can't survive politics as an honest person. He's coy enough too but these days I think you have to be willing to knowingly lie without flinching.

No they dont have widespread support amongst the Afghan people,quite the contrary. No one has good memories of the previous Taliban rule, they still have vivid memories of the horrors perpetrated on them by Talibs. Why do you think so many are trying to escape? Their main connection to the Afghan People was their links to the drug trade,,,,No Afghan agrees with the Taliban brand of Islam, none. The weapons ( not the newly acquired US ones ) and support would have been supplied by Pakistan, Iran, and anyone else who wanted to hit at the US / UK etc.