Afghanistan

Why is this place important? The Russians were there, we were there, and now it seems that the Turks have taken interest.

What is it with this place?

Its extremely strategic.
Didnt you ever play risk,lol.

It’s important because a group of guys in a cave over there want to kill me and my family

Thought it was for the Poppies.

They apparently want to kill each other. Seems like a win-win to me. Neither side is on ours.

I can’t argue with that statement. After 20 years you would think they would see the light. The light being Freedom and all it has to offer. Sad

Watch Charlie Wilson's War. We screwed up the end game.

Wars are money makers that’s how the rich get richer in DC money just vanishes out of thin air.

Ike said, ‘ beware the military industrial complex.” We love sending our young people off to some foreign conflict so the Oligarchs in the USA can get more wealthy. I say let China have a go at Afghanistan, and see how they make out.

Follow the money

No idea how this is kept so quiet.

China would be pretty efficient in killing off the Afghans. Why? Because they would care less about what the rest of the world thinks. We have a problem with politicians meddling in military affairs. Our military is quite capable of destroying Afghanistan, but we "have to win hearts and minds and not upset anyone".

We should have dedicated ourselves to exterminating the Taliban years ago, instead of going on a misguided invasion of Iraq.

We're allowing the enemy who attacked us on 9/11 to takeover Afghanistan once again.


Jim

1) So you are on board with the likes of former president Karzai? The man who gave false intel on "bad guys" who the US took out, only to discover that they were nothing more than his political enemies?
There is no "good side" in the spit hole country.
2) The US went to Afghanistan well before going to Iraq, and killed plenty of the Taliban, and showed Afghanis how to kill plenty of them. The problem is that there isn't a nickle worth of difference between a regular Afghani and a Taliban once there is a knife to their throat. They become "believers" for self preservation purposes.
I say leave them be. I'm sure Allah will sort it all out for them.

Here is my take on what is really going on.
Whoever is in charge of the current administration pulled us out so that they can bring us back in once the killing gets bad enough. This will happen just in time so that they can run political adds before the midterm elections. "Joe and the Democrats are the answer to World Peace" they will claim.

I don't really concern myself with this stuff. But, at a glance? I seem to have found that " Afghanistan " came into being in, or around 1747.

Brits make a move on it, 1839. Colonialism. They jack in 1842! That didn't pan out then.

1878? They're back! 1881? Back out. Butts on a platter.

1919? 'Stan flips the world the digit. World concedes.

1979? Russia gets cheesed and drops by to teach some lessons.

1988/9? That's quite enough of Thatsky! Butts on a platter.

1998? You boys send in cruise missiles. I think we all about have the idea since then?

Now? It's suddenly about 'Rare Earths'.

Something missing here?

In WWII we destroyed Germany and Japan. That worked. No one was willing to do that in the middle east. Either go to war or stay home. I say we should have destroyed Saudi Arabia. The rest of the sand box would have been a lot quieter. I also say its not to late.

Here's an idea. Let's stay out of everyone else's business and maybe they'll stay out of ours. If not, we can deal with it then.

I am tired of spending our money and people overseas.

Same way I think
Pull all of our people out of the foreign countries and protect ours. Anybody jacks with us we deal with them....................................HARSHLY

We have a ROI on having overseas bases and influence. This naturally causes resentment and possible attack.

911 has never been answered. If an attack on our country doesn’t merit an all out war then what does? If your interested there is a lot of evidence linking the royal saud family and their money to the attack. Do your own research.

Cant touch them they control oil and thus the dollar.

How many Jihadists crossed over the border in the last 6 months ya figure?

Allowing what's going on down there is treason imo.

The next few weeks will get interesting. I wonder what China will do as they are in desperate need of rare earths and Lithium as it seems they are the worlds exporter in that regard.

Heck, the remainder of this month may be one heck of a ride over here!

I surely don't have the answer. I have changed my mind on this war several times. What I do know is - we have bigger fish to fry at home along our Southern border. We have sent a lot of men, women, and dollars over there and don't have much to show for it. No other nation has invested as many resources as we have. GB is in a distant second place I think.

Let's spend that money on immigration controls and security. I think we will be able to see some positive results if you do.

I agree. Defending America first should always be our primary objective which includes securing our border. I certainly agree with Danny Clifton on this.

Russia appears to be in cahoots with Turkey as well as China. I heard Afghanistan has most of the worlds Lithium and rare earth minerals. Wonder if this has something to do with the global powers that be calling the shots....?

Destroyed Saudi Arabia? And killed how many innocent people?

I say we should target the individuals in the Saudi government and ruling Saud family who funded or supported 9/11. Our CIA probably knows who they are.

Spare the innocents. Punish the guilty.

Jim

I don't think we should pull out of Afghanistan just because we've gotten tired of waging war. The Taliban is going to take over and pose a new threat to the US.

Jim

We should have learned from Nam . . . stay out of other countries business! The US has no desire to WIN any wars since WWII. But....

[
Nope

The Taliban is friends with China.
Shortly,China will bankroll infrastructure and take payment in natural resources,like they are doing in many countries in Africa.
Iran and Russia are currently supplying the Taliban.Not to mention the tons of American weaponry and everything else abandoned by the "trained" Afghan army
Everything is working out perfectly for the Chinks.

Sad part is it’s just like Vietnam the politicians are deciding the war and that’s when everyone loses.

No, that's when the US loses. Politicians should stay the out of war, let the "Military Generals" decide how to run the war . . . if they're experienced enough to do so!

We always try to turn everybody into a little America . Well guess what they don't want to be like us . If they statr up again a few bombs should keep them in line.

In 70-71 one of my jobs was to train RVNs how to do avionics on the choppers and smaller fixed wing. That was when the USA actually made a political-military decision to turn the war over to the South Vietnamese. By 1972 the North had just about completed dividing South Vietnam into right about mid country. By 975 it was all over. We have had a training, policing, security, air support mission in Afghanistan since 2014 so the Taliban have had 7 years to prepare for what they are getting done now. What we see happening in days and weeks was years in the planning as a well supported rebel group they knew this day was coming and were ready for it.

Bryce

Yup ..1970-73 was the last time I played it with my friends…before they went off to College

While they are in the open, we could cut off their escape routes into Pakistan and bomb them into oblivion. Just a way to tell them good-bye.

China was mining rare earth minerals there while we were providing security for them. (Just how crazy our leaders have become).

Now they don't have us to protect them now. Things might get real for them.

James, Sorting good guys from bad guys is a really bad idea in a war. More people get killed and survivors hate you. Are you saying there were no innocents maimed and killed in WWII? When has sort through them ever worked???????????? Didn't work in Korea didn't work in Vietnam and it didn't work in the middle east.

P.S. we have not been waging war. that is the problem. The Taliban and the poppy farmers should be scared of U.S. military might.

The only good that may come from this is the Taliban may shut down opium production again.

Why would they want to shut down their cash cow? Opium funds their nonsense. Junkies around the world keep the Taliban train rolling.

If the Taliban tries to shut down the opium industry there, . . . THEN they may really have a war that would wipe them out! . . . Can you imagine the Cartels, drug dealers, and Govt's that support, and PROFITS from that business??? T'ban wouldn't stand a chance!

thats propaganda. opium production was practically nonexistant till the U.S. took over and wanted the goodwill of tribal chieftans

Do you really believe with U.S. satellite and drone imaging, that opium poppies could not be wiped out with airborne defoliant sprayers?

Nonexistant??? . . . you need to learn some history about the Opium Trade.

We will be leaving a military base full of Humvees and other equipment for the Taliban again just like obama did. Now Old Joe is giving them a second helping of American equipment including drones.
They will literally be shooting at us with our own guns as we run away.

It is also being used as a distraction from our own border crises that will soon overwhelm us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan


Rise of the Taliban (1994–2001)
During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons (4,400 long tons; 5,000 short tons) in 1999.[16]

In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the UN to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time.[17] The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2002.

Spot on, The picture gets clearer every day. China is the new super power, the only real obstacle left is the American Constitution

It wasnt long after that the chinks ramped up production of fentanyl.

Yup...... If we wanted we could but the powers that be have a vested interest otherwise

Worlds largest terrorist training camp soon to be in full operation again.
Wont be long before large scale terrorist attacks on the west resume where they left off.
Seen a clip on the news where one of the Taliban leaders told the reporter-"our goal is worldwide islam/sharia and we are in no rush to get there.We have plenty of time now."

Ya, because the world reaped the efforts of American, Canadian, British, and Australian men and women who were strong enough for a long while.

I suspect the horror of Taliban efforts will be felt closer to home in the very near future.

top opium producer in recent history.......s/e asia was when we were in nam...coincidence? I doubt it.

if the tali had our weapons they would rain death down on the USA in a minute...since we never really fought to win they think we are a weak/soft country. they take back over nd you will see another major terror attack on the USA.

afgan is where empires go to be defeated..since alexander.

what a disgrace letting this happen after many lives lost and trillions of $ spent.

anymore the USA = disgrace. makes me sick.

1) We trained and equipped the mujahedeen aka taliban to fight the Russians and now we're doing it all again.
2) Focusing only on Afghani involvement fails to take into account Iranian and Saudi involvement in most of the world's terrorism, including 9/11.
3) Every mosque and every moslem funds jihad every year. Wiping out the taliban requires exterminating every moslem from the face of the Earth.

The State Department confirmed on Thursday that the Pentagon sent two Marine and one Army infantry battalions to help with the evacuation of civilians and Embassy staff from the American Embassy in Kabul.

As usual with a liberal administration it's a very late move. The Taliban is withing striking distance. Let's hope no more Americans die in this crap show.

If the worst does happen you can rest assured that no Democratic heads will roll and questions like, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" will be asked.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan earlier on Thursday. “Let me be very clear about this: The embassy remains open, and we plan to continue our diplomatic work in Afghanistan,” Price said.

What a hot steaming load of camel crap! Embassy personnel are destroying documents. the last step in a total evacuation.

The Kabul Embassy is one of our bigger ones, nearly 4,000 employees, 1,400 of which are Americans. Let's hope they get them all out in time.

Looks like the folks pulling Bidens strings are having second thoughts about how this is going down. He’s upping the troops to 5000. Somebody must have decided things weren’t looking so good. Morons

Meh...or kill em all and let Allah sort em out.

I agree with Pawnee. Our country is being run by morons.

Heard a news report today that the Taliban are flying American helecopters all over the country.

helicopters need a LOT of maintenance and trained pilots. thats hard to believe

Why is that hard to believe with Iran and Russia backing and supplying the Taliban?
Do you think only Americans can fly and maintain a helecopter?LOL.
You have a bad habit of underestimating your enemys.

Cmon James...where have you been? The CIA? Haven't you heard? It's Trump supporters who are the biggest threat to the US. You know....the 1/6 Shaman and all. The CIA is focused squarely on stamping out white supremacy and antivaxers....as they should be. Cmon man

Alot of good men and women from us and canada died and for what? Absolutely nothing.

Not where i'm at!

[/quote]

Alot of good men and women from us and canada died and for what? Absolutely nothing.[/quote]

This is what bothers me the most.

My Son in law fought there from 2009-2011. He called it the #@&*% hole of the world. You couldn’t tell a good guy from a bad guy, as he was as likely to get shot in the back from the Afghan National Army as he was from Taliban insurgency.

We have been there 20 years, spent two trillion dollars , lost over 2,400 service people as well as over 3,200 US contractors. But it’s the lives lost and those who were wounded …. I feel for the their parents.

I lost some good buddies over there. I'm 42 now and this started when I was a sophomore in college; then I was only 21 years old.

I wore my yellow ribbon on my shirt every day to show support. This "war" has been fought over three presidents; and here we are the losers. It really breaks my heart.

At the time, I thought we were fighting terrorists, but now I realize that my buddies died to support America's addiction to drugs and also for rare earth minerals. Both billion dollar industries. Frankly, it really ticks me off!

I know a young fella who decided he wanted to become an Army Ranger and go fight the Taliban. He was married and had a fairly successful carpentry business going when the urge struck him. He must have just barely made the age restriction because he had to have been thirty years old at the time. That was a little more than ten years ago.

He made it out of Ranger school and went to Afghanistan. He came back saying the same thing your son-in-law said. He said you couldn't trust any of them and he did his best not to talk to any of them. He told me he killed a couple of insurgents during his tour.

I wish he hadn't have gone. Even though several years separated us in age, we were pretty good friends who hunted together quite a bit. That war changed him and dropped off my radar almost as soon as he got back. Haven't heard from him since.

Yup........ It made sense the first year. After that.....it was something else.

Most of the terrorists of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. The Taliban just gave safe harbor to them and allowed their training camps.

Eyes should've opened when supposedly stopped spraying their poppie fields with gly

Al Jazeera reporting the international airport in Kabul has been taken over by the Taliban.

I hope all our people are out.