paperboymafia wrote:pepe1991 wrote:complete off topic, what are your toughts on Afganistan fiasco and pretty much Seigon 2021 scenario?
Not gonna say much apart from that it's in a large part thanks to the US the taliban exist in the first place. Shambles, all of it, tragic. US foreign policy putting up another brick.
Not really.
The United States is on the hook for getting themselves involved and ultimately looking pretty stupid, but they have little to do with the creation of the Taliban. The credit lies largely with the Soviets and the Pakistani clerics that radicalized an entire generation of refugees that fled a war that turned increasingly brutal as the Soviets realized they couldn't win.
The extent of the United States' involvement was in supplying arms to the Mujahideen, which was not the Taliban. The United States wasn't alone in supplying arms to the Mujahideen. The entire problem probably could've been prevented if the international community had the stones to act directly against Soviet imperialism. They didn't. Here we are. The real losers in all of this are the people of Afghanistan.
I'm not generally an apologist for US foreign policy, but this idea that the US had something to do with creating the Taliban is a fallacy, unless you believe that the proper course of action was simply to allow the Soviets to conquer Afghanistan. And again, even if you believe that, the blame falls at the feet of many other actors as well. I'm not absolving the United States of blame here, but the Taliban isn't synonymous with Afghanistan. There are always going to be unintended consequences when you give arms to rebels, but arming rebels wasn't the action that resulted in the creation of the Taliban.
Afghanistan has been rife with political instability that long pre-dates American involvement. It was the battleground in central Asia between the British and Russian empires (The Great Game). The British Empire invaded Afghanistan twice. It was a failing puppet state of the Soviets when they decided to invade.
The United States went into Afghanistan because it was a haven for al-Qaeda. I'm sure there were other motives involved, but that was the impetus. I'm sure some capitalists have made a lot of money off of the invasion, but the public will for the invasion wouldn't have existed without 9/11 and the Taliban's unwillingness to cooperate in the United States' pursuit of retribution against the organization that killed a few thousands Americans. The Taliban is a brutal regime, but that's not why the United States invaded. You can find similar human rights abuses in many other places around the world at any given time.
I'm not a proponent of the United States making unilateral decisions to govern the world, but it's going to continue to happen until the international community demonstrates a willingness to do anything that is even slightly uncomfortable. The Russians annexed Crimea. What was the international response?
It's a strange position for me to be in defending the United States' foreign policy as I'm generally a critic, but I think this forum serves as a very good example of why things like Afghanistan happen. We have a heavy international flavor on this forum because people that live in Orlando don't have to go onto an internet forum to find someone to talk to about the Orlando Magic. These human rights violations will continue until the international community has the backbone to do anything more than criticize the de facto police of the world. The United States is essentially taking a lot of heat right now for leaving Afghanistan to its own devices. How is that really any different than what has gone on in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sudan, China, Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, etc... ? Isn't the United States decision to pull out just putting them on equal terms with every other country on earth that doesn't have the will to protect human rights in Afghanistan? Do you want the United States to stay in Afghanistan? Do you want the United States to deal with those other problems? Insinuating that the United States is the cause of the turmoil in Afghanistan is just the wrong play here.
"Xatticus has always been, in my humble opinion best poster here. Should write articles or something."
-pepe1991