The inevitable horror of Afghanistan
I was deeply involved in the anti-war movement in NZ 20 years ago and everything we claimed would happen has now come to pass with America’s withdrawal and Afghan collapse.
The cost has been horrific.
Over 70000 Afghan Civilians dead.
Over 70000 Afghan soldiers dead.
Over 23500 US & NATO soldiers wounded and dead.
10 NZ soldiers dead.
4million refugees.
And a financial cost of over $2Trillion.
Why did anyone think George W Bush was the next Alexandra the Great?
With the Taliban currently 80kms from Kabul, the entire collapse of the country looks likely within this month.
That NZ has not evacuated every translator and their families from the looming bloodbath should stain our collective honour.
The shockwaves of a militant Jihadist movement forming a failed state will have enormous regional implications.
Radical synergies with nuclear armed Pakistan and an exporting of Jihadists into China will cause enormous destabilization and the heroin trade which props up much of the Taliban economy will see a boom time which will have cheap high grade heroin appearing on the streets of Europe killing vast numbers of junkies.
This is the exact worst case scenario we all feared 20 years ago and is a reminder that there are limits to Imperial War.
A lesson taught to every Western Empire that has attempted to take Afghanistan in recent history.
For every bomb America dropped, they created 2 new terrorists.
Now we will reap what we sowed.
I’ve been walking through your streets
Where all your money’s earning
Where all your buildings crying
And clueless neckties working
Revolving fake lawn houses
Housing all your fears
Desensitized by TV
Overbearing advertising
God of consumers
And all your crooked pictures looking good
Mirrors filtering information through the public eye
Designed for profiteering
Your neighbor, what a guy
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Every time you drop the bomb
You kill the god your child has born
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Modern globalization
Coupled with condemnations
Unnecessary death
Matador corporations
Puppeting your frustrations with a blinded flag
Manufacturing consent is the name of the game
The bottom line is money nobody gives a fuck
Four thousand hungry children
Leave us per hour from starvation
While billions are spent on bombs
Creating death showers
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Every time you drop the bomb
You kill the god your child has born
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom
Why must we kill our own kind?
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Every time you drop the bomb
You kill the god your child has born
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom
Every time you drop the bomb
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“heroin trade which props up much of the Taliban economy “. Ironically the Taliban had virtually stamped out the Afghan heroin trade just before they were attacked by the US, since drugs were seen as unislamic. Success in Afghanistan was impossbile once the illegal (later rubbserstamped by UN security council) invasion of Iraq occured and diverted attention and resources.
Is my memory failing? I seem to remember reading that the one good thing the Taliban did was to stamp out the opium-growing industry.
Then the US, etc, invaded; back came the Warlords, corruption, and a renewed flow of opium from Afghanistan.
Am I wrong? Are the Taliban going to encourage cultivation of poppies to send heroin to contries they don’t like?
China isn’t worried about jihadists, they are happy to be friends with the taliban if it weakens regional American power. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/world/asia/china-taliban-afghanistan.html It’s also default support for their poodle Pakistan.
Hopefully this will discourage future adventurism of this kind.
D J S
You have to feel pity for all the women and girls that will live a life of oppression.
I wonder who is backing them as all the 4 wheel vehicles look new.
So did you cry when the US provided the where-with-all for the removal of the Russians who were invited into Afghanistan by the then Government? They had at least achieved gains in education and the status of women.
Wonder how many evacuation aircraft, troops of the uninvited occupiers who have had there backsides kicked and refuges will succumb to the stray US weapon that flooded the country. The outlook is dismal for the Afghans that will have to tolerate the product of US led adventurism.
Oh c’mon – the Russians were as hated as the Americans. They as well as the USA got their arses firmly kicked back to their homelands.
FUN FACT : Due to the ambient temperatures of Afghanistan’s deserts, Taliban militia avoided Russia’s heat seeking helicopters by wearing woolen blankets they threw over themselves that blended into the mountainsides, then waiting for 10 minutes for the choppers to pass. You had 10 minutes before the human body would betray your position.
Pretty swish, eh?
Primitive tech versus super tech. And guess who won. It wasn’t the Russians and it wasn’t the USA.
Facts right, please Americanophile.
When I was working in security I spoke to two returned servicemen (Army), both had to do with field comms,- which is where you are right up front and personal in the fray… both said ( euphemistically) the place should have been ‘nuked’.
The reason was the Afghanis didn’t want them there ( echoes of Vietnam), and the main reason was that the Taliban could be the local MP, Policeman, your brother , or corner dairy shop owner.
It was entirely predictable that once the Americans withdrew their troops, this would happen. And the ensuing rounding up of opposition and the coming bloodbath and purges. A colossal waste of life with no clear objective achieved. The Russians failed, the Americans and their allies failed.
And that is what happens when you try to fight a conventional war against a combat hardened people who don’t particularly like you being in their country and who use asymmetrical warfare tactics to fight back. Its a waiting game only. They wait until there is enough popular opinion back home for your politicians to entertain troop withdrawal. They win, you lose.
That is the folly of invading places like Afghanistan.
I would have thought Vietnam would have taught the USA that lesson decades ago. Slow learners, it seems…
Or perhaps learned from the British Empire experience around 180 years ago
“…an exporting of Jihadists into China…”
There has been an Islamist uprising in China’s Xinjiang province in the past several years. Many Uighur Jihadist fighters went to Syria from about 2015, and have since returned to Xinjiang. So Jihadists aren’t a new problem there.
Understandably, the government has been trying to quell that uprising. This is the origin of the CIA propaganda about the terrible things that the government is supposed to have done to the unfortunate Uighurs.
I was a young adult when Saigon fell to the Viet Cong. Listening to the news this morning, I was transported back to that time. An airlift of thousands out of Kabul? All of us who are old enough remember the pictures of helicopters ferrying people from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, as the Viet Cong walked into the city. It seems that Uncle Sam has learned nothing in the years since.
Take an oogle at what this man did, – unrelated to the subject at hand, but absolutely awe inspiring in our own wee country,… this is the sort of history we need to know about despite this article being about a foreign land,… look at how he was treated! Imagine the pressure put upon him in those early pioneering days ! Could anyone say they could have done better?!!?
Rātana, Tahupōtiki Wiremu – Dictionary of New Zealand …https://teara.govt.nz › ratana-tahupotiki-wiremu
This guys awe inspiring considering much of it happened in the 1920’s !
Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana
Enjoy !!! 🙂
What a powerhouse !
The bitter irony of a situation where the U.S spends trillions on trying to dominate peasants in mud huts then offers loans for their own minions to evacuate .
Yes!!!,… So true, so awfully true its almost hilarious apart from the deaths and bloodshed!!!
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-lithium-resource-availability-and-geostrategic-impacts-29-Reproduced-from-Ref_fig1_308339816
You should watch “Charlie Wilson’s war”
It was not just the United States of America that walked in where angels fear to tread. The Realm of New Zealand – under a Labour government – decided to join them. Whether it is the economy, foreign relations, or social policies ultimately one can always rely on the NZLP to do the wrong thing, and New Zealanders pay the price.