Afghanistan all over?

[Fittster]

"US President Joe Biden is set to announce that American troops will leave Afghanistan by 11 September, officials have told US media.

The US would miss a May deadline for a pullout agreed with the Taliban by the Trump administration last year.

The pullout deadline would coincide with the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the US in 2001."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-5673756...

Anyone have confidence in the Afghan government?

[grumbledoak]

Fittster said:

Anyone have confidence in the Afghan government?

Anyone have any confidence in the American government?

Has Afghanistan suddenly ceased to be strategically important?

Has America no more need for forever wars?

Not expecting much change, myself.

[NMNeil]

It only took the Russians 9 years to admit they could never win.
The US is still there after 21 years.

[Ian Geary]

Reading about it briefly, it seems all the same actors (warlords) who carved the country up after the USSR left are poised to do the same again.

It's being likened to another Syria, but I doubt Russia will get involved this time.

Maybe a Libya? Though the Taliban I think have the military advantage, so it won't take them long to consolidate power.

Feel sorry for the citizens, but democracy & stable governments seem to be a bit hit or miss at the moment.

[DuncsGTi]

Afghanistan will never be over. They don't call it the graveyard of empires for nothing. Years and years of money being pumped in and coalition forces coming home in boxes hasn't changed the quality of life of your standard Afghan family living in rural Helmand or Kandahar province.

I absolutely wouldn't change the life experiences which multiple operational tours out there gave me but in the greater scheme of things, was it worth the human cost? It has taken such a large toll on so many.

[Boobonman]

Do we not need the heroin anymore or something?

[Pilotguy]

Boobonman said:

Do we not need the heroin anymore or something?

I think technology has come on enough for it to be reliably made synthetically now.

[anonymous-user]

I think the current BBC news website article with some members of the "Opposition Party" just north of Mazar i Sharif gives a good insight into what the next few decades will descend into.