Taliban and Afghanistan

[Chesterton]

In the book, “What I Saw in America” (1922), GK Chesterton (Hah! I slipped in his name!) displayed a depth of understanding of America and Americans that had this American flabbergasted.

In his book "The New Jerusalem", there's a brief section where he contrasts Jerusalem (East) and London (West). I was flabbergasted by just a couple of paragraphs. That was another stepping stone for me towards Orthodoxy.

 

[buzuxi02]

Listening to some varying opinions on our military and intel leaders/special ops units' relationship with the Taliban over the past few days, I am wondering if we didn't just allow the Taliban back in as another dictatorial government ruling its

This is seemingly becoming the case. Here are two mainstream news headlines out just in the last 12 hours favorable towards the Taliban as the "good guys":
ISIS-K didn't aim to attack just Americans — it also wanted to embarrass the Taliban

And this headline:
Taliban leader reaches out to West, promises rights for Afghan women

 

[rusmeister]

In his book "The New Jerusalem", there's a brief section where he contrasts Jerusalem (East) and London (West). I was flabbergasted by just a couple of paragraphs. That was another stepping stone for me towards Orthodoxy.

It’s OT, but I don’t remember that comparison. That was one of his more difficult books to read, as he was really writing it as a diary for himself, more than for the public. When you talk to yourself, you take for granted so many things that you understand behind what you say that others are clueless about. Still, a great book, and perhaps more than any other reveals his blind spot toward Orthodoxy, his effectively ignoring the Orthodox clergy he saw and treating them like oddball Catholics, so wholly uncharacteristic of his usual deep ruminations on everything he saw.

 

[Dorothea]

This is seemingly becoming the case. Here are two mainstream news headlines out just in the last 12 hours favorable towards the Taliban as the "good guys":
ISIS-K didn't aim to attack just Americans — it also wanted to embarrass the Taliban

And this headline:
Taliban leader reaches out to West, promises rights for Afghan women

Typical, imo, of our horrible foreign policy for decades.

 

[Lukaris]

I believe our venture into Afghanistan should never have happened & Trump was the only recent president who might have released the USA from foreign entanglements. Our presence seemed to have a positive side in helping more Afghans become better educated ( especially women); I mean in opportunity not capability ( capability is always a potential). I think Afghanistan remained chaotic during our presence & that the increased educated Afghans were not able to administrate their society. Now these unfortunate people are in dire straits. Greater Afghanistan is probably just exhausted from generations of conflict & the Taliban probably just walked through.

A major concern I have now is there an internal power struggle within the Taliban between supporters of international jihad vs the more isolated Taliban tendency? Has ISIS infiltrated the Taliban & perhaps positioning them as a sacrificial goat ( such as they are) & will easily replace them?

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

In retrospect, Afghanistan should've probably been a short-term series of bombing campaigns, intelligence gathering-driven surgical strikes and ops, a small deployment in key areas, and something better-planned.

Father Matt knows TEN times more about this than anyone else here, but it just seems to me that the biggest mistake the United States makes time and time again is NOT studying and analyzing and planning for the cultures with which we interact or invade. We go to countries with wildly inaccurate or underestimated understandings of the intricacies and nuances and even glaringly obvious features of nations' cultures. We went into Iraq seeming to totally believe they'd love and embrace democracy with a massive tingle in their legs. We went in there thinking that they were one unified country rather than a nation with Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians, Kurds, and all sorts of variety of culture. We underestimated the buffering wall effect Hussein created in his hatred of "the Persians." The same happened with Afghanistan. From what I have understood (which is very little), the Afghanistanis are a very tribal people, many of whom still are grounded in tribe and locality without a sense of nationhood. I think we went in there thinking otherwise. We also underestimated Russian influences, the corruption, and obstacles.

 

[ArmyMatt]

we also can't ignore that the largest group in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the Pashtuns, and many of them would rather be in a Pashtunistan.

 

[rusmeister]

In retrospect, Afghanistan should've probably been a short-term series of bombing campaigns, intelligence gathering-driven surgical strikes and ops, a small deployment in key areas, and something better-planned.

Father Matt knows TEN times more about this than anyone else here, but it just seems to me that the biggest mistake the United States makes time and time again is NOT studying and analyzing and planning for the cultures with which we interact or invade. We go to countries with wildly inaccurate or underestimated understandings of the intricacies and nuances and even glaringly obvious features of nations' cultures. We went into Iraq seeming to totally believe they'd love and embrace democracy with a massive tingle in their legs. We went in there thinking that they were one unified country rather than a nation with Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians, Kurds, and all sorts of variety of culture. We underestimated the buffering wall effect Hussein created in his hatred of "the Persians." The same happened with Afghanistan. From what I have understood (which is very little), the Afghanistanis are a very tribal people, many of whom still are grounded in tribe and locality without a sense of nationhood. I think we went in there thinking otherwise. We also underestimated Russian influences, the corruption, and obstacles.

I generally agree with you on the mistake in all American interference in foreign lands when they do it. I think it’s an even bigger mistake that they do it in the first place, and the reason they do it in the first place is that our government has long been trying to project power around the world, not only militarily, but economically, backing up the efforts of Big Business, including Big Entertainment, our “pop culture” that is so anti-people. Many ideas are mixed; many think we ought to “spread democracy around the world” when we don’t really have it ourselves and long haven’t; this gets mixed in with our cultural hegemony; you have no idea how dismayed I am that I moved halfway around the world in part to escape Spider-Man underwear, only to find that it has followed me here and my son is now eagerly following the inferior, bad, and even poisonous ideas mixed into these “Marvel/DC universes”, etc. And that is among the more innocent things that we export in flooding the world with our cr*p. As a result, we get people who see that it is cr*p to resent it, and then us, and our military winds up getting used not only to impose policies intended to control the flow of oil and arms, but also these international markets and trade. And so American politicians, who are as corrupt as any you will find in Russia, work in orchestration with a media owned by the same paymasters to arrange war after overseas war (aka “The Forever Wars”, with all respect to Joe Haldemann). 9/11 began long before 2001, and wasn’t just because some Arabs “hated us” for no reason. A long train of interference in our name, both of attempts to manipulate and control, and betrayals, led to it and the very idea that “we” should be bombing Afghanistan.

From where I sit, we had TREMENDOUS capital of goodwill from what our grandfathers’ generation did in WW2, both in liberating Europe and Asia from the Axis Powers, and in helping Europe in particular get on its feet again. Everywhere I went as a young man across Europe, just before and after the fall of the USSR, I felt welcome as an American, and by 2000, I saw that welcome gradually begin to dissipate, as unilateral policies in our name sought to dominate the politics of other peoples.

So I think the idea of mistakes extends far beyond our understandings of the lands we seek to militarily dominate.

 

[ArmyMatt]

9/11 began long before 2001, and wasn’t just because some Arabs “hated us” for no reason.

this was one of Ron Paul's main points in 2012. we needed to know why they said they attacked on 9/11.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

From where I'm sitting and with all I learned when I studied Greek antiquities back in college (and continue to do so), I see history as a never-ending cycle. The United States resembles Athens during the time of Pericles and the Delian League while the Russians strongly resemble Sparta (not in the pure militaristic aspect, mind you, but in other ways).

The Spartans were a very insulated culture that saw itself as superior and pure. Their people did not travel much outside of Sparta. They preferred an oligarchy with a strong hierarchy. They liked to spread oligarchy amid a growing love for democracy. In their efforts to do so, they helped to influence and rig elections in Athens, spread confusion and bad feelings within Athenian society, and they deeply distrusted Athens.

The Athenians were a democracy, but they were a hypocritical democracy. They touted their jury system, voting system and how free they were yet they not only had a system that treated women as below a slave. They meddled in other city-states' alliances and tried to isolate Sparta hoping she would have no allies left and buckle. With situations like Mantinaea and Ellis, etc. you see Athens mess with Sparta's friends and sow tensions. Athens was operating under the guise of inclusion and democratic principles, but the minute an ally diverted from the Delian League agenda, they were invaded, isolated, and ruined.

The U.S. and Europe are essentially that Athenian "democracy" replete with hypocrisy and invasions, sanctions, and bullying. The Russians are the Spartans. They are a proud people, but insular, oligarchy-driven, and they love dictators/strongmen. The Spartans could do no wrong. The Russians are the same. We are expected to overlook Russia's suppression of freedoms, rights, a free press, and protests in the name of the fact they are more Christian than the West. On the other hand, we're expected to be proud of our country as Americans when our country hates its own flag, blatantly invades other countries for profit, preaches atheism, and can't even call a woman a woman and a man a man.

NATO vs. Warsaw Pact all the way until now with some realignment, nothing has changed since the Peloponnesian Wars.

I generally agree with you on the mistake in all American interference in foreign lands when they do it. I think it’s an even bigger mistake that they do it in the first place, and the reason they do it in the first place is that our government has long been trying to project power around the world, not only militarily, but economically, backing up the efforts of Big Business, including Big Entertainment, our “pop culture” that is so anti-people. Many ideas are mixed; many think we ought to “spread democracy around the world” when we don’t really have it ourselves and long haven’t; this gets mixed in with our cultural hegemony; you have no idea how dismayed I am that I moved halfway around the world in part to escape Spider-Man underwear, only to find that it has followed me here and my son is now eagerly following the inferior, bad, and even poisonous ideas mixed into these “Marvel/DC universes”, etc. And that is among the more innocent things that we export in flooding the world with our cr*p. As a result, we get people who see that it is cr*p to resent it, and then us, and our military winds up getting used not only to impose policies intended to control the flow of oil and arms, but also these international markets and trade. And so American politicians, who are as corrupt as any you will find in Russia, work in orchestration with a media owned by the same paymasters to arrange war after overseas war (aka “The Forever Wars”, with all respect to Joe Haldemann). 9/11 began long before 2001, and wasn’t just because some Arabs “hated us” for no reason. A long train of interference in our name, both of attempts to manipulate and control, and betrayals, led to it and the very idea that “we” should be bombing Afghanistan.

From where I sit, we had TREMENDOUS capital of goodwill from what our grandfathers’ generation did in WW2, both in liberating Europe and Asia from the Axis Powers, and in helping Europe in particular get on its feet again. Everywhere I went as a young man across Europe, just before and after the fall of the USSR, I felt welcome as an American, and by 2000, I saw that welcome gradually begin to dissipate, as unilateral policies in our name sought to dominate the politics of other peoples.

So I think the idea of mistakes extends far beyond our understandings of the lands we seek to militarily dominate.