Afghanistan

Sorry Oldie, my knowledge of their history is next to nothing. Or, our involvement in what it's become.

I see a very sad Country, now under the control of vile, murderous people. Unfortunately, unless we and the rest of the World tool up and go in and sort this once and for all, it always will be.

Who are we to judge?
We have loads of young females in water poor care homes, poorly educated, often abused by men.
We have families queuing up at food banks. Families who cannot afford the rent they have to pay to live under a roof.
But thats alright, they dont have to wear a veil...they must feel really grateful.

Yeah, lets lecture others on their social structures.

😡

Didn't our government recently order the deaths of 10s of thousands of elderly in care homes?

Maybe the Taliban judge us on that.

We didn't set up a communist state in Afghanistan, we didn't force the Soviet Union to come to its aid for ten years, we didn't arm Bin Laden, we didn't create the Taliban, recognise them as genuine government or support them during their reign in the late 90s, we didn't invade Afghanistan to rescue women and children, it was to get Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The overthrow of the Taliban was a byproduct of that.

Yes we have history there, and elsewhere, much of which is not great. But I have grown up in a post imperial world not knowing the British Empire (or others for that matter) other than in history books. Operation Hairshirt is one thing, but we need to live in the here and now, whilst we need to learn from history we can't allow it to keep us prisoner.

At the moment we have Taliban patrolling the streets of Kabul, reports of many speaking with non Afghan accents.

It's not just the UK who has been involved there.

It’s not a question of cultural superiority. The afghan people and I suppose that includes members of the Taliban, have a rich and fascinating history and culture. I don’t feel superior to them in any way.

We live in the present world not in the past. What do I have to do with the support given to the house of Saud after WW1. f**k all is the answer. I feel fortunate to live in a country where our laws promote equality and human rights, our women free to express who they want to be. I just want the people of Afghanistan, who don’t want to live under strict sharia law, to experience the same. That’s not a judgement, that’s standing up for those who have no voice.

I’m probably as opposed to foreign wars as you are. Was dead against Iraq and didn’t want much involvement in Afghanistan initially beyond removing the terrorist camps. The country building along western values was a good thing whilst it lasted but as usual we didn’t deliver on promises and now Afghanistan is back where it started again.

In Saudi, women get stoned when they commit adultery, in Yatton women commit adultery when they get stoned.

Watch it you !

Unfortunately it was Bosnia, Kosovo and Sierra Leone that gave our politicians false confidence that British interventions in troubled areas of the world would automatically be a success.

The difference between those places and the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq is that we went in with a clear end point and clear limits in what forces were to be deployed. In Bosnia and Kosovo it was a bombing campaign and a peace keeping force to deter the Serbians from continued violence, in Sierra Leone it was evacuation of British civilians and then a limited special forces operation to release hostages and secure the airport.

In Afghanistan and Iraq we thought we could stay and make them better places. All well and good but that’s a long, long term commitment, one we were never going to provide once the initial reasons for intervention in the first place were out of sight and costs mounted up.

Just caught the backend of newsnight, we’re taking in 20,000 Afghan refugees. 👏 to Johnson & the right wing ghouls