Off Topic Thread 5.0

Its a few years ago, what I remember was we paid for insurance. All fine but then they was a query on the NCT. The vehicle was DOEd. Commercial.

Insurance was withdrawn. Therefore we went elsewhere. That wasn't the problem. Refunding the cash was torture. Phone calls not answered. Emails ignored.

Awful ignorant company IMHO.

Sweet just sweet. Delighted for Mayo.

Dublin as cynical as I've ever seen and I'm a Tyrone man. I'd be delighted to see Mayo go on and win it outright.

Well the Americans have certainly got value for money from their foray into Afghanistan. Clearly leaving the country in a safe pair of hands…definitely up there with the hasty retreat from Vietnam.

I'm just back from a trip home and everywhere I went in Dublin, Galway, Roscommon and Donegal accepted by NHS cert no bother. Not sure why we have the two separate QR codes, got a panic the first time I went to use it and the first QR code came back invalid (because it's just proof you've had the first dose)

I wouldn’t disagree with that but there has never been a successful campaign in Afghanistan. Pretty much every empire and quasi empire has tried and failed. They could have stayed there for 50 years and the outcome would have been the same.

I am heartbroken for the people of Afghanistan, especially the women. But is it time to at least discuss that the Taliban enjoy an awful lot more support there than we would like to think?

Insurgency and Guerrilla tactics are (a) exceptionally hard to combat and (b) require a decent amount of support from locals. We saw that in in the Irish war of Independence. Britain could not win that war because enough Irish people did not want British rule and supported the IRA, whether that was simply keeping quiet about what they knew was going on, right up to providing more tangible support: logistics, alibis, hiding places, etc. Shoe on the other foot, if enough Irish people wanted British rule, information would have leaked, the IRA would have been crushed, and we'd all be sweating over Brexit-driven shrinkflation right now.

Taliban represent the Pashtun group, approx 45% of all Afghans. For 20 years the most competent military intelligence on the planet couldn't eradicate them. Once these occupying troops fully withdrew, Taliban then took over the country with breathtaking speed. For me, those two sequential events - prolonged survival and immediate successful counter assault - simply can't happen if an insurgent force diametrically opposes the majority political will of the people.

I want Democratic freedom for every person on this planet, but I can't shake the thought that the greatest tactical blind spot of interventionism is the assumption that "our way of rule is best", and that nobody would consider an alternative more appealing.

I've been trying to get kids passports for 18 months....they've basically closed the passport office except for emergencies since the beginning of the pandemic. I just assumed it was to discourage people traveling.....

On Afghanistan, this was always going to end with Taliban back in control. The state/govt that the US created was absolutely venal, and was hated by everyone in the country except those in on the take. They had no political base other than from NATO and through the graft networks. People in the cities preferred them to the Taliban but very few people had any confidence that the government in Kabul was anything more than a puppet regime. The US spent 1tn dollars there, most of it went on US military largesse, waste, and delusions but hundreds of billions went into 'reconstruction', 'development' and NGO schemes, most headquartered around Washington DC, and those produced very little of value but created an economy and culture of corruption and gangsterism that made the Taliban look like paragons of fiscal virtue. As for the Afghan army, so much money was being stolen that they remained poorly armed and actually hungry a lot of the time. Why would anyone risk their lives fighting the Taliban when you know your officer corps is only in it for the graft and will probably bail with the first sign of trouble? The only silver lining is that the Taliban have taken over without much fighting which would have destroyed the cities and made it even more miserable for civilians.

Most people's lives in rural Afghanistan won't change much but you'd have to feel for those in the cities who have seen rapid change in their society since the Taliban were pushed out in 2001. That's all on the floor now.

11 hours since your post pickarooney. This forum now moves at a snails pace. A snails pace which will only serve to hasten its decline. I’m thinking Nokia, blackberry…

I dunno what on earth they're doing but these notifications are wrecking my head.

It's like every time they try and make a change to this place to make it easier to use or get users back posting they manage to make it even worse.

Does nobody test these things before they push them live

Typical stupid teenage girl. I left at the same time as him and on the way out (he was a few feet behind me) she declares loudly "dad ask him for a photo or I'll literally die".