The answer is obvious, it only really mattered to a few relative to the population. Even if they are not fundamentalist Muslims, they are mostly muslims of afganistan. They are not US loyalists, and they already practice the religion. The anti-taliban and anti-orthodox-Islam sentiment was american and never the locals. If they remained after 20 years they were probably much more fond of afganistan itself than living in another nation.
Here's something interesting. Groups of armed Afghans attacked the Taliban on Friday, driving Afghanistan's new rulers out of three northern districts, the first assault against the Islamist militants since they swept into Kabul last week and seized control of the government. Local anti-Taliban commanders claimed in interviews they had killed as many as 30 of the group’s fighters and captured 20 in the takeover of the districts in Baghlan province, just over 100 miles north of the capital. Former Afghan service members were joined in the fight, they said, by local civilians. Images shared online showed celebrations as the red, green and black Afghan national flag — rather than the white flag of the Taliban — was raised over government buildings. Friday’s attack is the latest sign of defiance toward the Taliban, ranging from Afghans refusing to fly the white Taliban flag to women protesting to preserve their rights. Together, they illuminate some of the obstacles the Taliban faces as it seeks to form a government deemed acceptable by a broad spectrum of Afghans and by the international community, especially donors. But whether Friday’s attack is a sign of an emerging new military front against the Taliban remains to be seen. As in most parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban had taken over the districts with little resistance in recent weeks. Shuja said that the local residents had told the Taliban fighters they can govern as long as they don’t enter their villages and homes. So when the Taliban came to conduct searches, former Afghan military servicemen, along with civilians, decided to rise up. They drove out the Taliban in less than a day. “Taliban fighters did not listen to us,” said Shuja, who had left his post in Helmand province when he heard that military units were surrendering en masse to the Taliban. “They came to our houses and harassed people. In our villages, people are very traditional and Muslim. There is no reason for Taliban to come and teach us about Islam.” The article goes on to say that there are several different factions. The fact that the Taliban are meeting resistance is good as far as it goes, but it's hardly a united front. Trying to build a unified Afghanistan still looks like a longshot. Who knows, maybe we'll go back to the good old days of proxy wars.
That analysis from Al Jazeera I posted yesterday mentioned that the central government was pinning it's hopes on several different warlords commiting their militias to the fight, I could live with those warlords stepping up to keep the Taliban at bay and dividing the country into new provinces based on their individual holdings. I keep hearing about how the borders of Afghanistan were drawn arbitrarily, this could be an opportunity to redistribute power more naturally. Create a system with strong provincial governments and a weak, federal government with very limited authority. Maybe?
That would be more realistic than anything we've been trying to do for the last 20 years. One thing I doubt is that the Taliban will have any more success building a unified state than anyone else. Maybe the whole damn thing will split up like Yugoslavia.
IIRC before 9/11 the country was divided up into Taliban territory and warlord holdings, so it's not unreasonable to expect that'll happen again. Presumably/hopefully the warlords are in a better position this time around.
another day of the 14th whining "why can't the americans kill Islam? I hate Islam because they are all a bunch of primitive assholes who need americans to bomb them. How can I masturbate to Islamic people being killed and occupied if the americans quit?" God damned you are an obvious bigot. An idiot who does not understand Islam is not evil and is the religion the middle east wants to practice is so hopelessly out of touch they should be a Trump advisor. The US harbors one of the biggest anti-muslim bigotries and is probably the most powerful enemy of Islam in all of the world. It is really no surprise after all the US has done for Isreal and to destabilize and harm the people of the middle east that most people would rather deal with ISIS and the Taliban than some american soldier on their street disappearing people for being a muslim. That is not to mention all the timnes we have b9ombed mosques, weddings, schools, and hospitals. The warcrimes of Obama, Bush, and Trump are legendary and completely anti-Islam. We tried to turn them into christians through campaigns of bombings, violence, and death. Then we have idiots like you spreading right wing american lies because you hate them too. Any day your canadian ass wants to do something, they are waiting for you tough guy. Go be a hero to those people and see how much they want an Islamaphobe to come rescue them.
When we look at the history of american meddling in the middle east there are many problems that are going to be held against us. We invaded Iraq for not other reason than to topple the regime of Saddam. How well did that actually work when we destabilized that country? Saddam may have been horrible, but the removal of his regime did create a power vacuum to which multiple other factions fought for control. We could also look at lybia where we helped to arm and fund those who took out wacky kadaffi only to have those rebels need to keep the US out or else be seen as being on the side of the US. We were not liberators or even wanted in the aftermath. That is because they had their own people who wanted control and did not want to be seen as puppets of the US. Why is it so amazing that we are n0ot considered the great liberators and allies we claim to be? Perhaps they know we are not their allies. Yes, we might have a friendly faction we arm, but we are not a pro-Islam country, and we do not respect Islam. Another hundred years of occupation will change very little in their desire for self-autonomy. Even looking back at the history of the US would another hundred years of brittish rule have caused the US to not want it's own power and control of it's land and resources? Why didn't the US just accept european occupation?
I do have to laugh that @14thDoctor thinks the US military is out there promoting moral superiority and an end to sexism. Have you met the US, and are you 5? The US military is riddled with complaints of rape, sexism, and other forms of sexual assault. They cover the shit up. If they saw it on the streets they would not do anything. They are not out there stopping families from killing their girls. They are not imposing some moral right over the country. There are two reasons the american military is anywhere. They are money and power. If neither are present the military is not going to be sent in. To think the US is the moral police of the world is insane, and a bad lie. A few years back our moral position was to send a couple of senators to an african nation that was raping and pillaging to encourage them to kill gays in the name of jesus. That is the morality we export, and that is our involvement when you have neither money or power. when we want to send our moral values elsewhere they are christian, and they are old school male dominated christian values. Dear idiots: The only reason the US talks about morality and defending the innocent is marketing. That is for the brochure of the american military. That is a more insane lie and con than the trump family can come up with. Our military walked across the US and committed genocide and some of the most immoral horrible acts imaginable. Our military helped secure slavery and slave routs. Our military has killed more innocents than the plague. In the last 20 years our military has established prisons around the world to torture people, and has studied and implemented torture in ways that would make Nazis Blush. You want to put these people in charge of the law without any legal system or way to hold them accountable for inhumane acts? At least there is a possibility of fighting back against the Taliban. You have no hope of fighting the american military in any meaningful way. You want to talk about immorality. Immorality is subjecting other nations to an occupation by a military force so powerful and without controls we won't even let them act on our own soil because of the potential atrocities and horrors of the weaponry.
You are more Amaris than even Amaris has been about this, and she hates the fact that Biden draws breath every day.
They let a bunch of robots out? Jesus christ this is like Terminator times the Matrix squared by RoboCop.
After electing Donald Trump, America has no right to impose it's "living indoors and having clean water is good" morality on other nations. I have a survey that says Haitians love getting cholera. Sending emergency rations in the form of western food is just more colonialism and imperialism. That money could be better spent on several boxes of band-aids and neosporin for the entire country to share.
At the risk of slightly offending Amaris, she's a naive hippie that's fallen for rightwing propaganda designed to neutralize the political power of the far-left with manufactured outrage. I'm angry about real provable events that actually happened and certain people's horrible reactions to them. I'm willing to admit that I have personal reasons for being angrier about this situation than other folks here seem to be, but even without that personal connection it's still unquestionably as massive betrayal that no decent person should attempt to minimize or excuse or justify. There's absolutely nothing that could ever make abandoning those people an okay thing to do, and it's infuriating to watch people try to make that argument. Especially when they misrepresent the mission and try to denigrate my dead and wounded countrymen as "colonizers" or "imperialists" who were only there to "impose themselves" on the people they were trying to help.
Oh good god you set up a bullshit strawman like a faux news pundit. You probably swap conflicting bullshit when the side changes too.
It is great you have a personal issue, but the US military is not there to avenge or whatever. They do not care about your morals, nor do they enforce them in any meaningful way. You are drinking the kool aid if you think anything of moral value is being done by them. That is gullible on a massive level. You are like one of those kids who signed up for the military and believed they would make you a general, and never send you into combat or abroad if you did not like it. If you were american you would be one of the easiest cons a recruiter ever had.
So you do not see the importance of the island net around the gulf? You do not see any power in that? Are we a toddler now? Even Trump could connect the dots with his sharpie on why protecting the caribbean and gulf would be important, and the strategic power of multiple bases on multiple islands there. I know you are trying to be intellectually dishonest and derail with a strawman because obviously we wanted a presence in afganistan because of the power it would bring to us vs two of our biggest opponents in the world. Even if Haiti was worthless it would not negate the reason we were in afganistan was for power and influence in the region, and not because we were trying to protect the poor women and children. We probably killed more innocent women and children in afganistan than the Taliban could. I want to play you in RISK someday because if you could not see why having military in haiti is important to the US you have strategery and not strategy.
I honestly don't get the strategic importance of Haiti, which btw isn't anywhere near the Gulf (of Mexico I'm assuming) . Please explain it to me.
At this point you are obviously trying to derail with an argument that belongs in it's own thread. So I am going to call it and if you would like to discuss the strategic importance of haiti to the US military feel free to make a topic and I might respond. However, since this is all you have I will consider my point that the only reasons for the US to be somewhere are money and power as still standing. Feel free to make up whatever excuse you have for not being able to handle the point.
So that would be a no on you starting a thread about how haiti empowers the us. OK, would you like to try and turn this into a discussion on your avatar and it's meaning? That would be just about as on topic and the normal way to derail a thread with you in it.
