Is Kabul Saigon revisited?

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The Taliban are poised to take full control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, after their fighters took up positions on the outskirts of the city, and the US sent helicopters to evacuate diplomats from its embassy.

In deeply humiliating scenes for the Biden administration, embassy personnel were ferried by military helicopter from the compound to the nearby airport. Diplomatic armoured SUVs could be seen leaving. The exodus began early on Sunday after the insurgents captured the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Wisps of smoke could be observed near the embassy roof, as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents, US military officials told the Associated Press. British embassy staff were also scrambling to leave the country, with the ambassador due to fly out.

One has to ask what exactly has been achieved in Afghanistan in the last 20 years with the Taliban poised to take Kabul. They have already taken Bagram air base and the Afghan army has literally crumbled in the face of the Taliban advance.

Wit the US and UK sending thousands of troops to aid the evacuation of Kabul, one has to ask what the families of of soldiers who died in the conflict feel like today.

Why couldn't the might of the US military defeat the Taliban and will Saigon 1975 rear its ugly head as the US leaves the country, defeated by the very force they went there to displace in the first place?

Afghanistan likened to fall of Saigon as officials confirm Taliban take Kandahar

As Lashkar Gah is also captured, US senator Mitch McConnell says exit could be ‘sequel’ to Vietnam humiliation

www.theguardian.com

Didn't we once regard the Mujahedeen as freedom fighters against the Soviet Union? And wasn't the Taliban born out of the Mujahedeen?

I didn't realise that Britain also has a dark history in Afghanistan and this opinion piece compares the situation to a Greek tragedy.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/opinion-is-history-once-again-repeating-in-afghanistan/2213506#

Quote from Rice

I wonder if this is simply an opinion piece by a Turkish writer in a Turkish publication, or a reflection of the Turkish Govt’s POV. Impossible to tell.

Not a huge amount of opinion in that piece really, since we all know the history of the region anyway.

By the way, I don't believe a word this Taliban spokesman says.

In full: Taliban spokesman calls BBC News

A spokesman for the Taliban, Suhail Shaheen, called the BBC's Yalda Hakim, live on air.

www.bbc.com

Quote from UK Man

Maybe I'm selfish but if I had to really care what bad things went on in every country I'd end up being the one needing care. Truth be told I haven't a ruddy clue what it's all about....if it's to do with religion then I don't want to know.

It's more than just religion. It's a state of mind, a way of life that harkens back to the dark ages, not unlike what ISIS would like to impose upon the rest of humanity.

The Taliban think nothing of beheadings, cutting off limbs and relegating women to nothing more than chattels of men. Many believe Afghanistan will become a breeding ground for even more fundamentalist terrorists which will then spread far and wide. The US and its allies endeavoured to contain this, but the failure is all too plain to see.

The other side of diversity when you don't even read the news.

Lily Cole: Model apologises for posing in a burka on Instagram

The model and activist posted a picture of herself in a burka as a way to "embrace diversity".

www.bbc.com

Here's a note from a Royal Marine commander, Jez Hermer, who served in Afghanistan. A soldier, who would know more than most what exactly they were risking and for what.

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THERE WAS NEVER, EVER GOING TO BE A GOOD TIME TO LEAVE.

But I am 100% behind the withdrawal.

Having commanded a company of up to 200 Royal Marines in Helmand in 2006 I feel I've earned the right to comment and I believe I have a valid viewpoint. Many will disagree with me. Many of my former colleagues. Mostly those who've now been proved wrong by the recent humiliating, sickening and in my opinion, inevitable turn of events.

In all of my career - and across the various operations I deployed on, our role and aims in Afghanistan were the only ones I had no belief or faith in. Even when in command in Helmand, I had severe reservations about the utility of our mission. As for the political and military motivation - I was never convinced. I knew the party line - we all did - we were force-fed it...

'To create the security conditions to allow democracy to take root and flourish.... la la la...'.

A soundbite. A political line. Vacuous bullshit. No more convincing or relevant to the reality on the ground than a cheap marketing slogan. A 'mission statement' that was supposed to galvanise men to risk their lives in its pursuit... but a line with as much credibility as President Karzai himself. It may well have convinced hawkish senior British officers and gullible politicians, but grubbing around in the field, at the tactical level - where I was, seeing Afghanistan and its terrain and its people and their ideology and mentality and belief system....seeing the pathetic calibre of the NATO trained Afgan forces - it seemed immensely stupid. An ill-conceived conceit.

I could go on and on. And on.... I'm quite angry, not by the withdrawal - but by the fact that it took us twenty years to see the wood from the trees.

I take no pride or comfort in being proved right. But what is happening now, was always inevitable in my opinion and by prolonging the inevitable for twenty years all we did was prolong the agony and increase the cost in blood and treasure.

To those who say we should stay, I say... For how long? Another twenty years? Another 500 British lives? Forty years perhaps? Sixty?

You cannot fight an ideology in a place like Afghanistan.

As one old-as-the-hills Taliban fighter (who my chaps had taken prisoner) said - as he dragged on a gifted cigarette:

'You'll never win. You are democratic... eventually, your government will give up. We will hide, you will go home, then we will rise up. We will win, you will lose. We have God on our side. Inshallah'.

An uneducated, illiterate farmer-cum-Taliban. Wiser than the Oxbridge classes who govern and lead us. Apparently. Demonstrably.

I lost colleagues and friends and many of my cohorts were terribly injured physically and mentally. I will never undermine or belittle what they did at a tactical military level. As brave as lions. The best. But committed to an unwinnable cause.

I was a dedicated, professional officer and soldier. I loved my job. I advanced from the lowest ranks of REME apprentice to Commanding a company of some of the very best and most professional troops on this planet. I planned to return from Afghanistan and continue my career. But in the end, I took stock on my return... and resigned my commission prematurely. I never wanted to be put into such an invidious position again... in command of and responsible for the lives of men on an operation I had no belief in. I was failed by my political masters. I believe we all were. Now the Afghan people have been similarly failed. Fed false hope and abandoned.

I'm glad we're out. I feel sad for Afghanistan. But, in the end, the Afghan forces failed to rise to the occasion... as, in my heart, I always knew they would. In my experience, when Afghan soldiers weren't fucking each other (yes...in the sexual context), they were high on pot. Not an army to put your faith in.

I hope we learn some real lessons from this. The sense of committing to fight an ideology from within a democracy.

Futile.

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Frank Gardner, the BBC defense correspondent says that even though the Taliban won this one, we must encourage them to act correctly...

Even though the bomb this morning is said to have been a suicide bomber from IS-K, a branch of ISIS, the Taliban will do what they wish since they now have the upper hand. The question remains - why did the allies not start this mass evacuation long before the pull-out began and before Taliban forces had the advantage?

The deadline ends on Tuesday 31st and who knows what's going to happen then if the evac isn't completed, or even before?