U.S. could have not cynically installed the most pliant pro-American corrupt thugs to be in charge and told the people to obey, after having destroyed their homeland and treated them like idiot children for an entire generation.
> U.S. could have not cynically installed the most pliant pro-American corrupt thugs to be in charge and told the people to obey
Which of course has been the post-WW2 standard operating procedure for the U.S. in more countries than I care to count. And it always comes back to haunt us, god knows what the long-term ramifications of this latest fiasco will be.
There are 6 million people in Kabul plus some elite Afgan Army. That is enough to make a no passaran moment to Taliban. Theoretically.
But it seems like all Western-minded urban Afgans want to get evacuated to US, Europe, Canada rather then put up a good fight. So why the West shall fight for their freedoms?
How many more dead bodies do you want to add to your tally for your Hollywood movie moment? They don't want a civil war. How is that not obvious to you?
> [A]s Chayes studied the graft of the Karzai government, she concluded that it was anything but benign. Many in the political élite were not merely stealing reconstruction money but expropriating farmland from other Afghans. Warlords could hoodwink U.S. special forces into dispatching their adversaries by feeding the Americans intelligence tips about supposed Taliban ties. Many of those who made money from the largesse of the international community enjoyed a sideline in the drug trade. Afghanistan is often described as a “failed state,” but, in light of the outright thievery on display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This wasn’t a situation in which the Afghan government was earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether”—the enrichment of its own members. Washington supported Hamid Karzai and his ministers and adjutants in the hope that they could establish a stable government, help pursue Al Qaeda, and keep the Taliban at bay. But the Karzai government wasn’t a government at all, Chayes concluded. It was “a vertically integrated criminal organization.”
> Q Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —
> THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken.
> The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.
> There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.