The status of women there is certainly something that the international community ought to pay attention to. As to what it either can or can not do, that is anyone's guess.

The inclusion of some of the merited aspects of the former Republic of Afghanistan, the elevated status of women, the increase in civil liberties, etc., would also be beneficial to the Taliban, as it would make less people likely to want to leave and for them to be more approachable on the world's stage. Those sort of things, however, can only be approached within a rather uncertain future.

The point of my above post was to initiate, among whomever there is that is even capable of doing so, some sort of plan for the safe withdraw of foreign nationals and Afghans who would like to leave the country. That, which is kind of a lot in its own right, is all that I think that we can bargain for at this point in time.

The world expects for the Taliban to create a fanatical chaotic authoritarian state that functions as center for terrorist activity. They assume that the early days of their reign will be marked by humanitarian catastrophe.

I am not so pessimistic. I hope that the Taliban will prove us wrong, and even think that they will to a certain extent.

We do still have to keep in mind who they are, however. There are grains of truth to fears of what the upcoming state will be like.

There has never been a state akin to the soon to be created Islamic Emirate, which leaves us without precedent. Both we and they will have to learn to engage and adapt to one another as their country develops.

As I see things, the Taliban will have to either have to gradually reform or internally dissolve should they want for their state to last for a long period of time. If I am correct, then, in ways, in the long run, there isn't really a reason for us to be too concerned with them at all.

I am not so pessimistic. I hope that the Taliban will prove us wrong, and even think that they will to a certain extent. — thewonder

I hope so but it will be so difficult the fact the would no act as authoritarian as we tend to think. They are literally taking the power by the force and they do not care all the mess of Afghanistan. Something which starts in this way will not end up pretty well... who knows if the Western needs to take the place again like in Gulf War 1991. I wish not because this was one of the worst failures that the western democracies ever did... Irak and Kuwait! Oh boy... many years wasted and death bodies in the street. But it is true that now Irak is administered under USA agencies right? Probably it was somehow worthy at all. I wish Afghanistan will not live the same experience as Irak’s.

Islamic Emirate, — thewonder

This issue still be a big problem in Syria but nobody cares now :sad:

The status of women there is certainly something that the international community ought to pay attention to — thewonder

Completely, this is the real XXIth century issue. Most of the countries are developing a lot of rights toward women. But in Islamic world are more “slower” than the rest...

Well that went well, hey.

So what else might you have been able to do with 5.6 trillion dollars...?

I recall during the early stages of the war hearing stories of women committing suicide by self-immolation in order to escape the Taliban because of that they had no other means to do so, and, so, I would caution against becoming too hopeful. Inheritance is a start for sure, though. — thewonder

It would be a start. I seriously doubt they will grant inheritance to women as required by the Shariah...

Tragically, Afghan women have used many ways to leave this world: their husband's gun, drinking pesticide, throwing themselves into a well, or setting themselves on fire... Yes, more of that is to be feared.

One bit of cultural trivia this forum might find interesting is the Afghan (Pashto) female poetic form called landay. Landays are composed of only two verses, a bit like haïkus. 'Landay' means 'viper' in Pashto. A landay is therefore a short, poisonous viper of a poem. As such, the form expresses the Pashtoon women dry view of their world. Landay are oral literature only, songs in fact, although a few have been published. See this site for a more in-depth analysis and a rich sample: https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

Or read: Songs of Love and War, by Sayd Bahuddin Majrooh.

Your eyes are bees
I can find no cure for their sting

Embrace me in a suicide vest
Who says I won’t give you a kiss?

It's really tiring to see all these sad liberal readings of the siutation as a 'lack of foresight' or 'waste of resources' or 'tragedy'. All this discourse does it frame the situation in terms of some kind of accident or 'absence' that could been remedied if only such and such happened or something. It retains an utterly naive faith that in general, things were going the right way or some such.

But the conversaion needs to be changed from any sense of 'lack' or 'absence' into a positive one: the US does not, and never has, given a shit about what happens to Afghanistan. The US had twenty years, two decades, to make plans. The fact that any semblence of Afghan government all but evaporated in under a week tell you all you need to know. The descent into disorder was something that was allowed to happen. It was, if not planned for, then at least expected and totally foreseeable.

As for the 'waste of trillions of dollars' and/or 'time', again, you have to be a totally propagandized moron to think a single dollar was wasted. All of it went straight out of the pockets of US citizens to American arms manufacturers and opiate producers - or else the local warlords with whom deals were cut to prolong the madness. It's not an accident that in every photo of the Taliban now circulating, their weapon of choice is no longer the AK-47 but the m4. Look at the guns these people are holding:.



That will be the lasting US legacy in Afghanistan. Just as it was the last time around, when US intervention created the same terrorist groups that flew planes straight into the heart of downtown NY. Every time some naive idiot bleets about or sheds crocodile tears about 'saving woman and children' without at the same time pointing the finger straight at the toxic and malevolent complicity of the US in creating the situation in which those precious women and children will be subject to inhumanity, they can be safely ignored. They do not, and have never, given a shit about Afghani women and children.

To think that one can speak of 'madness rolling over Afghanistan' - as if it hasn't been twenty years of madness of which this is simply the culmination - is political moronism in the extreme.

. Every time some naive idiot bleets sheds crocodile tears about 'saving woman and children' without at the same time pointing the finger straight at the toxic and malevolent complicity of the US in creating the situation in which those precious women and children will be subject to inhumanity, they can be safely ignored. — StreetlightX

I was not speaking in an American perspective but an European one... Europe Union did a recognizable effort about women and children’s rights in Syria crisis. I wish they do the same in this context towards Afghanistan.

Agreed. Every single country that cheerled and participated in the US colonization of Afghanistan now owes its refugees not only legal asylum, but housing, social security, language-training, educational resources, and job guarantees, at the least. The US most of all, followed closely by the UK and Australia. That's the conversation that needs to be happening. Not "oh look at these terrible savage Taliban taking over the country oh how terrible". Like, please. The fact that the Taliban were going to take over the country was a fact as immovable as the sun being hot. Anyone surprised by that fact has not been paying attention. It's like being horrified at gravity.

Anyone who actually gives a shit about 'women and children' needs to ask about the sway of the arms industrial complex in the US. Its status as the No#1 weapon exporter in the world. The fact that it spends half its budget on wars that are not won, but end up in the hands of corporations and warlords. The US leaves a trail of death everywhere it goes. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows this. Even now, its only response has been to continue to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan, because well, the money spent on those bombs may as well go somewhere, considering everyone knows they will be entirely ineffective - apart from probably killing more civilians and further radicalizing more locals:

"But what of the United States? Its deployment of B-52 bombers, Reaper drones and AC-130 gunships are a brutal response by a failing, flailing imperial power to a historic, humiliating defeat. The United States does not flinch from committing mass murder against its enemies. Just look at the U.S.-led destruction of Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria. How many Americans even know about the officially-sanctioned massacre of civilians that Iraqi forces committed when the U.S.-led coalition finally took control of Mosul in 2017, after President Trump said it should “take out the families” of Islamic State fighters?

Twenty years after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed a full range of war crimes, from torture and the deliberate killing of civilians to the “supreme international crime” of aggression, Biden is clearly no more concerned than they were with criminal accountability or the judgment of history. But even from the most pragmatic and callous point of view, what can continued aerial bombardment of Afghan cities accomplish, besides a final but futile climax to the 20-year-long U.S. slaughter of Afghans by over 80,000 American bombs and missiles?".

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/13/biden-must-call-off-the-b-52s-bombing-afghan-cities/

Agreed with you and good argument. I think political and lobby power do not care about Afghanistan anymore because probably is not so profitable that it used to be. You mentioned the important lobby of weapons not only dangerous but how rich many businessmen went due to this amazing “business”. Here, in this context, we have to mention other powerful market: drugs. It is so known that Afghanistan is country where marijuana or heroine are planted and then sold in Western countries. There are a lot of powerful institutions clearly connected with this because it is easy money.
The sad part of this situation is the people who is suffering it when they are not collaborating neither connected with the issue and I give you examples: the Afghan kid which sadly is raised full of violence in a broken state. The teenager who sorrowfully takes drugs that were planted in Kabul and were purchased by a rich Western ambitious businessmen.
Conclusion: here lose all the weak and civil citizens.

the conversaion needs to be changed from any sense of 'lack' or 'absence' into a positive one: the US does not, and never has, given a shit about what happens to Afghanistan. The US had twenty years, two decades, to make plans. The fact that any semblence of Afghan government all but evaporated in under a week tell you all you need to know. The descent into disorder was something that was allowed to happen. It was, if not planned for, then at least expected and totally foreseeable. — StreetlightX

There is a multitude of issues here that really undermine the US in ways that the US simply doesn't care to think because it is so wrapped around in itself. It didn't care about the Afghan government, or it allies in Afghanistan, or the neighbors of Afghanistan. Basically it just got tired of Pakistan a long time ago, because who cares what the Pakistanis want. Bush emphasized for very long that they weren't in the "nation building" business. And there simply wasn't a Taleban insurgency in the first years. Even now talking heads on Fox blame "nation building" for the failure. As if that former region of Yugoslavia has still peace doesn't show that "nation building" can work.

Unilateralism has become so endemic with the US that American politicians didn't care about it. Let's just remember that when Trump made the absolutely disastrous deal with the Taleban the vast majority of western forces in Afghanistan were non-American. Just three countries, Germany, Georgia and Turkey had more troops in Afghanistan than the US last February. Didn't matter. Who cares about 37 other countries.

In November 2020, Jens Stoltenberg, head of NATO, made this rare comment about the Trump plan:

Nato Secretary-General Jen Stoltenberg, in a rare public show of concern, said "the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high". In a statement, he added that Afghanistan risked once again becoming a platform for international militants to organise attacks.

And he was right. Nobody (that I have heard of) of the NATO members or even a non-aligned country like Finland was demanding rapid pullout from Afghanistan. Because, just as with Russia's Middle Eastern policy, NATO countries understand that foreign interventions are long, and you have to have limited obtainable objectives.

Didn't matter. The US doesn't think of it's allies. American politicians only think of their domestic politics, domestic debate and don't care at all about anything else as the World is their oyster.

And once the US put the deadline for withdrawal, the other countries withdrew too. They don't have the logistical ability to support troops in a landlocked country in Central Asia. Especially as all relations to neighboring countries were shredded and none offer bases anymore. In fact, the war in Afghanistan has been supported from another continents, basically Romania and Qatar. Now actually Operation "Resolute Support Mission" has troops only from the US, UK, Azerbaidjan and Turkey.

Then, as usual, the US didn't care much of it's own invention, the Afghan government. Just as it doesn't care a shit about the similar one it created in Iraq. After leaving them totally alone, then the US leaders have the audacity of being surprised that everything collapses. At least South Vietnam put up a fight for a few years. But they were left out in the cold also. So would have happened to South Korea too, if suddenly the US would have decided during the Korean War to withdraw it's forces and would had the great idea of South Korea fighting it out with North Korea, China and the Soviet Union alone. And when the poor South Korean army would have fallen, then they people would say a-ha, they weren't worth it.

Nowdays the inability of the US to lead alliances is noteworthy. We have already, during the Trump era, had serious debates in Europe if the US leaves Europe. Then naturally there is a huge void that countries have to scramble to replace. The tidal waves just put everything on the move.

It will be interesting to see what the tidal waves will be here. We can hope that everything will go smoothly, and the Taleban can have their Emirate and the World will forget them. No news is good news, usually. Now, unlike in the 1990's, the Taleban controls 100% of Afghanistan. It has a chance to pacify the country.

But I think that the collapse of Afghanistan will encourage muslim insurgents everywhere and IS will also reappear. And that is the last thing the Biden administration wants to admit.

But I think that the collapse of Afghanistan will encourage muslim insurgents everywhere and IS will also reappear. And that is the last thing the Biden administration wants to admit. — ssu

US intervention anywhere has always perpetuated cycles of violence and end up coming home to roost. It's an iron law of the universe no different to e=mc2. The tragedy is not that the US is pulling out now but that it didn't do it a decade earlier when they found Osama in *check notes* Pakistan.

But I think that the collapse of Afghanistan will encourage muslim insurgents everywhere and IS will also reappear. And that is the last thing the Biden administration wants to admit. — ssu

Interesting argument but if the collapse of Syria or Libya did not encourage IS at all, why Afghanistan would do it then?

The tragedy is not that the US is pulling out now but that it didn't do it a decade earlier when they found Osama in *check notes* Pakistan. — StreetlightX

As I debated with a PF member, right from the start the Taleban was a military objective to defeat for the Bush idiots. So simply just taking out Osama wouldn't do. Besides, there is still doctor Aiman Al-Zawahiri around.

There started the slippery slope of killing ordinary Afghans as "students".

Interesting argument but if the collapse of Syria or Libya did not encourage IS at all, why Afghanistan would do it then? — javi2541997

Uummm...what???

IS has been both in Syria and in Libya, so what's your point? Both collapses gave way to IS earlier.




Taleban and IS are different entities. And I assume that the Taleban doesn't want to be linked to the remnants of ISIS (IS). Notice that these organization are top down structures with a religious leader in charge, be it a "Caliph" or an "Emir".

IS has been both in Syria and in Libya, so what's your point? Both collapses gave way to IS earlier. — ssu

I am agree on Libya context... But what's the real impact in Syria? It is true that IS is around there and having army prepared to fight but I guess they not should consider as a terrorist cell or similar because they do not overtake all Syria territory yet so they are not powerful enough to make impact aspects as we are used to know. Furthermore the fact that Al Assad won his 4th elections. We can or cannot like him but he is literally the ruler of Syria. IS is there just an "enemy" and I guess Syria doesn't fall at all...


Also, even the fact that IS can have some control over Libya, they are not dangerous as other countries closer like Morocco. This country did not fall at all, is ruled by their king but at the same time IS is having a very important role over there. Barcelona attacks in 2017 or Paris 2015 were perpetrated by a terrorist cell in Morocco territory. Here is when you know the IS has a real power not in a broken country wihout control like Libya.

the Taleban was a military objective to defeat for the Bush idiots. So simply just taking out Osama wouldn't do. Besides, there is still doctor Aiman Al-Zawahiri around. — ssu

There's always someone with a scary exotic name around. The US doesn't need an excuse to be shitty, murderous nation. They will find one regardless.

But what's the real impact in Syria? It is true that IS is around there and having army prepared to fight — javi2541997

Not as before. The IS doesn't hold any large cities or regions as before.

Situation in February 2021:

There's always someone with a scary exotic name around. — StreetlightX

Printed on a playing card. As if taking them out does do anything.

Also, even the fact that IS can have some control over Libya, they are not dangerous as other countries closer like Morocco. — javi2541997

This is simply wrong. Individuals being terrorists doesn't make the country dangerous. A lot of terrorists are from the UK. Morocco can control it borders. Morocco isn't a failed state with competing governments and internal disarray. Morocco doesn't have armed groups roaming around. If you want to find them, you have to go to the area of Spanish Sahara annexed by Morocco, and there is the Polisario. And they aren't islamists, even if they are muslims.

Libya is quite different.

The soldiers abandoned by leadership; the weapons, aircraft, and ammunition left behind for the Taliban; the utter failure that was the withdrawal. 20 years, unfathomable tax-dollars, and many lives for nothing.

When Biden told allies, “America is back”, he wasn’t kidding. It’s more of the same piffle that got us into this mess in the first place.

So Secretary of State Blinken declared that the fall of Kabul isn't like the Fall of Saigon.

It actually is.


Apart from parts of the South Vietnamese army fighting to the end.

he IS doesn't hold any large cities or regions as before.

Situation in February 2021: — ssu

Thanks for sharing. IS clearly lost a lot of power in Syria, so can we already speak about Al-Assad´s victory over there?

Morocco isn't a failed state with competing governments and internal disarray. Morocco doesn't have armed groups roaming around. — ssu

Well this is so interpretable... if you say is not failed state when is a feudal monarchy with zero human rights I do not understand you then. They do not even have the chance to have internal disarray because their king controls everything already. To be honest, I do not think they control the borders so efficiently. Do not remember when they allow to enter all their citizens in Spanish territory with zero reasons? or maybe the reason was not caring about the life of many moors and then, make Spain responsible if a disaster occurs both humanitarian and politically. So I do not think Morocco is a "normal" or "progressive" state. Their king does not give certainty about the defense or security so we cannot speak in general terms arguing that Morocco has not armed groups because we do not know it yet neither what is going on inside their power.

there is the Polisario — ssu

This territory, sadly, is a mess. Some say is part of Morocco, others say belongs to as an autonomy country as "Saharawi"

This note was written in 2002 about Afghanistan: This meant war, which is just what the terrorists wanted. What they really wanted was probably World War III between Islâm and the West; but that was not what they got. The United States did not want to occupy Afghanistan, like the Soviets, but just to beat down the regime and its power and hunt out the leaders of the terrorists and their installations. At the same time, the old enemies of the Ṭâlibân, hanging on in the North, still with Russian support, could be encouraged and aided. Whether or not they would be able to actually retake the country, the basic American operation should be a commando or "special operations" one, long celebrated in movies, which now must be proven in practice.

Thus, a poor, bare, harsh, sad, and luckless country, Afghanistan, enters the 21th century as the cockpit of world history.

Kings of Afghanistan

We'll see if the Taliban movement has improved, which would be a welcome development.

Say, don't prevent whoever (not just mothers with children) from leaving, and taking their belongings with them. Allow anyone to discontinue membership of their religious ideology, implement opt-in. Set up a reasonably fair and impartial court/legal system, equal for all. ...

Wikipedia » Taliban » Condemned practices

IS clearly lost a lot of power in Syria, so can we already speak about Al-Assad´s victory over there? — javi2541997

Somewhat. And it's worth noting that Russia succeeded in it's goals with the intervention in Syria.

American commentators hoped that Russia would find a quagmire in Syria. It actually didn't. It basically just has one airbase from where it operates a modest number of various combat aircraft. Then it uses mercenaries as foot soldiers. It's losses have been sustainable and the objective was to keep Assad in power. Assad has stayed in power.

And unlike the Americans, let's remember that Putin won the war against Chechen insurgents...namely by getting one Chechen insurgent to run the country.
Grozny then:


Grozny now:


The idea of the US simply choosing one of it's fiercest enemies, like Haqqani, and making part of the Taleban run the country would have been impossible for Americans to stomach. But that's usually the way that insurgencies are dealt with: with a political solution and in the best solution, having former enemy insurgents joining your ranks. If you choose a guy who (or whose father) fought you well, that person as your friend might end the insurgency:





Left alone to it's devices and without political leaders guidance, even the US Armed Forces successfully did win over Al Qaeda with "the Sunni awakening" in Iraq... in order to snatch defeat from victories jaws and leaving the Shiite regime in charge. And ISIS happened later.

(Unfortunately, then the US left and a new bullshit chapter was written in history:)

Well this is so interpretable... if you say is not failed state when is a feudal monarchy with zero human rights I do not understand you then. — javi2541997

Our definitions are here different. Perhaps here instead of using a "failed state" the name could be "a collapsed state": a former country without the ability to implement rule on it's territory would be here what I'm looking for.

For example Saudi Arabia isn't a failed state. But surely not a democracy.

All in good critique, but it's not as if Americans and completely lacking in empathy. I'm not sure what anyone else thinks that we can even do about our arms industry.


I have continued a conversation here so as not to derail the Biden thread.

Both Russia and, more particularly, China, have left personnel in their embassies in Afghanistan, which, I think, will ultimately, despite whatever, be beneficial for the facilitation of international discourse. The Taliban are about to become an actor as a nation on the world's stage and there do need to be people who are willing to engage them in dialogue. China's effective support for the regime may become problematic for the general discourse on human rights, but, at least, there is some party there now to mediate the general discourse.


To my understanding, the next generation of Taliban are considerably less intransigent and fanatical than the previous one, and, so, the fears of what the upcoming regime will be like are kind of overblown. It will ultimately be a religious and fairly authoritarian regime, however, and, so, there are certainly concerns to be had.

There are a few historically and politically savvy people around here. — jorndoe

And a bit of ranters ranting. :)

Afghanistan Falls To Taliban Couple Hours Earlier Than Expected (Aug 16, 2021)

Afghanistan's untold story: Stability, tourists, miniskirts (Aug 19, 2009)

To my understanding, the next generation of Taliban are considerably less intransigent and fanatical than the previous one, and, so, the fears of what the upcoming regime will be like are kind of overblown. — thewonder

Let's hope so. (y) They now have iPhones, not quite a rejection of non-archaic/medieval life. Involving them, talking, showing, etc, might help some.

Yes, it is true that both Russia and China left their embassies but I think it was “just in case” context. I was watching the news and they are not clearly saying that are against talibans. Probably there will be many chances that Russia or China would start making some contacts and see which are the real interests of Afghanistan.
To be honest, I feel they win. This mess is now focused in the failure of the Western. I totally think that Russia and China are planning something but is not the appropriate moment yet.

China's effective support for the regime may become problematic for the general discourse on human rights, — thewonder

It is true that the focus of human rights will be around China again but it looks like this country never ever cared so much about the issue so it is not effective at all…

Well, the rather naive anti-imperialist narrative is that things like so-called "human rights" are just a "liberal" pretext for humanitarian intervention, i.e., as per their general indistinction, "imperialist" wars.

China, I am sure, wants to secure lithium for the manufacture of laptops, and to gain a certain extra-juridical stake in the opium trade, and, so, can only be considered as so sincere, but I do think that they, to some extent, mean to genuinely counter the narrative of the Taliban as a barbaric people, which, considered aptly, ought to be somehow done, and to facilitate dialogue with the emergent nation.

Afghanistan's Hekmatyar says heading for Doha with Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah to meet Taliban

The glimmer of hope that former Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, can facilitate a safe withdraw and peaceful transition is more or less all that anyone any longer has.

In the beaten way of political analysis, I would suggest that both the opinions of Western spectators and long and troubled political history of what will soon become the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan no longer matter. The situation has already unfolded as it has. The only person with any capacity to any longer mediate the situation there, other than, of course, the leaders of the Taliban, is none other than the former first democratically elected president, Hamid Karzai. He also happens to be one of the only people either on the ground in Afghanistan or in some position, i.e. that of an elected official in the United States, to mediate a transition to a new government in Afghanistan, albeit an extraordinarily limited one, who, by his response to the success of the Taliban offensive, can any longer be considered to be worth his weight in salt. If the international community really cares about avoiding a projected "humanitarian catastrophe", then they can only now have faith in Hamid Karzai. He is as our last man left standing.