Biden was half-right when he said the Taliban are not the formidable fighting force that the Vietcong were. That is the tragic truth behind his catastrophic blunder; unlike the Vietcong, the Taliban were being successfully contained with only minimal US and allied military engagement. All thrown away - for what?
Again, no one answers the basic question.
We provided more than enough means for the Afghan Armed Forces to hold the Taliban at bay. We did the same for the ARVN in 1975.
Yet, the ARVN collapsed in weeks because though they had the means, they didn't have the will.
The same has happened here - why is no one prepared to fight and die for Ghani and his Government?
Well, Afghans have been fighting for the Ghani government, but they are giving up because it looks hopeless.
I'm not sure what your wider point is. Yes, it was a messy situation with no good solution. But it was contained. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than what is happening now.
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Rory Stewart:- Deeply disappointing to hear – on top of everything – that Afghans who received Scholarships from the UK government to study in the UK this year have now been told they will not be granted visas due to "administration issues". Surely someone can sort this out? https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1426558342709891078
Hardly any point now though. There are only about 10 flights out of Afghanistan per day, and of course, they are full (you can only board if you have a negative coronavirus test).
You've got to admire the insanity. Woke governments (of which the US and to a lesser extent the UK are included) are in a performative panic about racism and womens rights; whilst they actively abandon a whole generation of young women to a life of rape and slavery, if they survive at all; in an actual patriarchial hell.
Whilst this is sadly true what is your solution: that we keep fighting?
There is no solution; obviously the problem was in trying to achieve liberal democracy and womens rights by way of regime change, too late now to go back in time and change that. It was more a comment on the obsession with identity politics: as an obsessive and possibly disproportionate amount of effort is spent achieving 'progress' in a small number of western countries, the rest of the world takes giant leaps backwards, and it all largely passes without significant comment or interest outside the old school legacy media.
I agree with you but successive UK governments did pour hundreds of millions into the education of female Afghans in the hope that this would create a more equal society. It's not as if we did nothing. We just failed. But it is undeniable that it puts the obsession with our supposed patriarchy here into perspective.
Perhaps Afghan men should also have been given some education. Because if men do not support women's rights then, no matter what you do for the women, those rights have little chance of lasting.
Isn't the mens' education largely provided by madrassas instilling knowledge of the Koran by incantation?
No, not in areas that have been under government control. The situation has been messy and underfunded, especially for girls, but not dominated by madrassas.
First indications are that it has changed overnight in some areas taken by the Taliban. A return to islamic schooling: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58191440 Along with the compete segregation of women.
Biden was half-right when he said the Taliban are not the formidable fighting force that the Vietcong were. That is the tragic truth behind his catastrophic blunder; unlike the Vietcong, the Taliban were being successfully contained with only minimal US and allied military engagement. All thrown away - for what?
Sometimes, the tide of public opinion is to go isolationist, keeping all the prizes we won by being born here and now for ourselves. America has been prone to it for a long time, and Britain is going through a phase of it.
It's the thing Larkin was moaning about in Homage to a Government....
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly We want the money for ourselves at home Instead of working. And this is all right.
It's hard to say who wanted it to happen, But now it's been decided nobody minds. The places are a long way off, not here, Which is all right, and from what we hear The soldiers there only made trouble happen. Next year we shall be easier in our minds...
And maybe, in the context of Britain's choices, it is not all wrong. There's not a huge amount the UK can do if the USA CBA. Be as humanitarian as we can, I guess. And thank God it's them instead of us.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Rory Stewart:- Deeply disappointing to hear – on top of everything – that Afghans who received Scholarships from the UK government to study in the UK this year have now been told they will not be granted visas due to "administration issues". Surely someone can sort this out? https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1426558342709891078
Hardly any point now though. There are only about 10 flights out of Afghanistan per day, and of course, they are full (you can only board if you have a negative coronavirus test).
You've got to admire the insanity. Woke governments (of which the US and to a lesser extent the UK are included) are in a performative panic about racism and womens rights; whilst they actively abandon a whole generation of young women to a life of rape and slavery, if they survive at all; in an actual patriarchial hell.
Whilst this is sadly true what is your solution: that we keep fighting?
There is no solution; obviously the problem was in trying to achieve liberal democracy and womens rights by way of regime change, too late now to go back in time and change that. It was more a comment on the obsession with identity politics: as an obsessive and possibly disproportionate amount of effort is spent achieving 'progress' in a small number of western countries, the rest of the world takes giant leaps backwards, and it all largely passes without significant comment or interest outside the old school legacy media.
I agree with you but successive UK governments did pour hundreds of millions into the education of female Afghans in the hope that this would create a more equal society. It's not as if we did nothing. We just failed. But it is undeniable that it puts the obsession with our supposed patriarchy here into perspective.
Perhaps Afghan men should also have been given some education. Because if men do not support women's rights then, no matter what you do for the women, those rights have little chance of lasting.
We needed to make the economy work for most people. Getting the median income to somewhere around $10-20 per day would have been sufficient for people to embrace a major cultural change and try and build from there, and gradually reduce the power of local "leaders".
Expecting those on a couple of dollars per day to care about politics, religion or education over day to day survival is not going to work.
This is a fallacy which we keep repeating. Economic development does not lead to the embrace of liberal social values - there is abundant evidence of this in the middle east.
With the patriarchy, you are dealing with an entrenched system of social values: an order that has survived millennia. On a historical scale, the alternatives can only be regarded as tentative and experimental. In the afghan case, we can clearly conclude that it failed.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
Biden, last month: "The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. 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 the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan." https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1426801235966021634
You seriously have to question the level of intelligence he’s been provided with by his agencies because there is a great risk now they will be coming back in body bags. I dearly hope not but they must be panicking in the US at the situation.
I infer from what I've been reading this morning that the Taliban have elected to let all the foreigners go. The Americans have sent in thousands of troops to cover the retreat, who'll be much better armed than they are. Fighting an unnecessary battle and taking enormous casualties at the end of a war that they have already won makes little sense.
While what you say makes perfect sense, since when did sense come into play with maniacs with guns. Wouldn't take the risk.
The same has happened here - why is no one prepared to fight and die for Ghani and his Government?
This misunderstands why soldiers fight. Almost nobody takes extreme and repeated risks to their lives for Queen and Country. They do it for the others around them. For the shared endeavour. If the ANA won't do it then it's because they don't have that collective bond. That's a failure of recruitment, indoctrination and training probably caused by trying to impose a Western force structure on them and rampant corruption.
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Instead of focusing on Washington, why was no one prepared to fight for Ghani or his Government?
The parallel is both with Saigon in 1975 and with East Berlin and Prague in 1989. If a point comes when no one will fight for a Government, however powerful it may be and whatever levers of control it may have, that Government will fall.
We provided the means for the Afghan Armed Forces to defend their country - what we didn't or couldn't provide was the will.
Yes but there was always a risk the Afghan armed forces would not have been strong enough or strong willed enough to defeat the Taliban.
UK and US governments are dependent on democratic election. Would there have been enough popular support to maintain a permanent armed presence? There may be now, of course, but it's too late. Would there have been three months ago?
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
One would hope that this factored in to American military planning re the withdrawal - we can't be certain of anything though.
Mr. Away, it is rather bedwetting. Like when a Labour MP (I forget the name, alas, he formerly trained as a priest) wanted Delilah no longer sung at Welsh rugby matches.
Edited extra bit: may've been Chris someone-or-other.
The one with the underpants - New Labour's answer to John Major?
I think it was Chris Bryant.
Please.. the vision of him in his ubderpants is making me feel sick.. i just had my hreakfast.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
I am not sure Cambodia had a better post-war decade than the US.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
O/T but FPT for @Leon - that Nature article you found on the Antikythera Mechanism is absolutely fascinating. Many thanks for flagging it up.
If I understand it right, this is (to us) counterintuitive genius - to reduce the cosmic cycles to the most accurate possible sequence of rational numbers (made up of integers for both numerator and divisor, such as 234/567, 61/1, etc.) which can therefore be accurate converted to a sequence of prime integers - and, very easily, the integral numbers of teeth on strings of gears, going one way to multiply and the other to divide. Total solution to the cosmos. And all done with rational numbers. Remembnering that some Greek mathematicians really, really hated irrational numbers.
But cramming it all in, with such ideas as using the same primes where they occur in different sequences to save on gears ... And that mechanism of a pin on w wheel sliding in a slotted bar I've seen elsewhere, in dreadnought gun-aiming computers, in use until very recently in the odd WW2 hangover such as the Belgrano and Iowa:
Of course those 20th century things had messy continuous data full of irrational numbers, without the elegance of the Greek computer, but they do seem in some ways to be its unwitting heirs.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
Didn't Boris also say he would never allow a border down the Irish Sea?
He had no choice to get a trade deal with the EU as the EU held the key hand on that.
On indyref2 Boris holds the key hand, not Sturgeon, under the Scotland Act 1998
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
Careful, you’ll set off the nuke Kabul loons again.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
The terror that the Project for the New American Century wouldn't deliver American hegemony and oil dollars unless they blamed Iraq for 9/11
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
20 years of no more 9-11s will be seen as a win in some quarters.
Whether there will be no more in the next 20 will be the test of whether the Taliban has learnt lessons. If there are, they will be pushed to the outer edges of Afghanistan's cave systems again.
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
They could try flogging it on the second hand market to China or Russia who might want to reverse engineer it, or the Middle East where they might want to use it.
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
The Iranian regime took over the Shah's F-14s in 1979, but they were severely short of spares by the end of the first Gulf War.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
The Iranian regime took over the Shah's F-14s in 1979, but they were severely short of spares by the end of the first Gulf War.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
Didn't Boris also say he would never allow a border down the Irish Sea?
He had no choice to get a trade deal with the EU as the EU held the key hand on that.
On indyref2 Boris holds the key hand, not Sturgeon, under the Scotland Act 1998
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Why am I not surprised at your attitude, let us not forget you are the only conservative who has threatened Scotland with tanks and invasion, so warfare is your answer to these very complex problems
It is time the UK and the conservative party stepped back from foreign military interventions and I really hope Boris does not become involved in any intervention in Afghanistan other than humanitarian
No matter ones views on whether the USA needs an enduring presence (Of whatever size), the ultimate exit plan - evidenced by having to apparently send 5000 troops back (After they were taken out) to get the last diplomats/worthies/US allies and citizens ,because Kabul is falling faster than you thought it would, out does seem particularly shambolic
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
They could try flogging it on the second hand market to China or Russia who might want to reverse engineer it, or the Middle East where they might want to use it.
The AAF don't really have anything that would be worth the effort. A-29, Cessna 206, C-130. Maybe a few 1st gen UH-60s.
The same has happened here - why is no one prepared to fight and die for Ghani and his Government?
This misunderstands why soldiers fight. Almost nobody takes extreme and repeated risks to their lives for Queen and Country. They do it for the others around them. For the shared endeavour. If the ANA won't do it then it's because they don't have that collective bond. That's a failure of recruitment, indoctrination and training probably caused by trying to impose a Western force structure on them and rampant corruption.
The unfortunate few who did fight at the beginning of this are dead. Reportedly including those whose then surrendered.
Resistance after that seems to have been non existent.
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
Didn't Boris also say he would never allow a border down the Irish Sea?
He had no choice to get a trade deal with the EU as the EU held the key hand on that.
On indyref2 Boris holds the key hand, not Sturgeon, under the Scotland Act 1998
HYUFD is getting to be our very own Cato the Censor. You ask him about somethign completely different such as the price of cucumbers (approved bendy), he says "Ceterum autem censeo Caledoniam esse delendam".
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
Hubris? Sunk costs? The knowledge of what would come to pass the second we gave up?
Biden has evidently decided that, of the only two available options - staying put forever, or failure - failure is the least unpalatable option. History will judge whether or not he was right.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Instead of focusing on Washington, why was no one prepared to fight for Ghani or his Government?
The parallel is both with Saigon in 1975 and with East Berlin and Prague in 1989. If a point comes when no one will fight for a Government, however powerful it may be and whatever levers of control it may have, that Government will fall.
We provided the means for the Afghan Armed Forces to defend their country - what we didn't or couldn't provide was the will.
Yes but there was always a risk the Afghan armed forces would not have been strong enough or strong willed enough to defeat the Taliban.
UK and US governments are dependent on democratic election. Would there have been enough popular support to maintain a permanent armed presence? There may be now, of course, but it's too late. Would there have been three months ago?
I don't doubt it would not always be popular but necessary decisions not always are.
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
With respect Max.... There's no kill switches in Jeeps, M16s aren't massively different to AK47s... so long as the Taliban don't misfuel the Humvees it'll all run. I expect they'll have some mechanics amongst their lot
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
The Iranian regime took over the Shah's F-14s in 1979, but they were severely short of spares by the end of the first Gulf War.
They're still flying, though.
For its final 15-20 years, Concorde was kept flying by an army of guys building parts for it in their sheds at the weekends....
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Have you ever been to Vietnam? Prosperous certainly. And it's a while since I was there, but not many police about.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The Charles Kennedy who was the only leader of a significant party to oppose the madness that was the Iraq War? That Charles Kennedy?
Yes, that Charles Kennedy. I would have certainly voted for Blair over him even as I was campaigning for IDS' Tories at the time.
As I have already said even if there were no WMD Iraq is now a democratic state with a relatively secure government and free of the dictator Saddam Hussein
Rory Stewart:- Deeply disappointing to hear – on top of everything – that Afghans who received Scholarships from the UK government to study in the UK this year have now been told they will not be granted visas due to "administration issues". Surely someone can sort this out? https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1426558342709891078
Hardly any point now though. There are only about 10 flights out of Afghanistan per day, and of course, they are full (you can only board if you have a negative coronavirus test).
You've got to admire the insanity. Woke governments (of which the US and to a lesser extent the UK are included) are in a performative panic about racism and womens rights; whilst they actively abandon a whole generation of young women to a life of rape and slavery, if they survive at all; in an actual patriarchial hell.
Whilst this is sadly true what is your solution: that we keep fighting?
There is no solution; obviously the problem was in trying to achieve liberal democracy and womens rights by way of regime change, too late now to go back in time and change that. It was more a comment on the obsession with identity politics: as an obsessive and possibly disproportionate amount of effort is spent achieving 'progress' in a small number of western countries, the rest of the world takes giant leaps backwards, and it all largely passes without significant comment or interest outside the old school legacy media.
I agree with you but successive UK governments did pour hundreds of millions into the education of female Afghans in the hope that this would create a more equal society. It's not as if we did nothing. We just failed. But it is undeniable that it puts the obsession with our supposed patriarchy here into perspective.
Perhaps Afghan men should also have been given some education. Because if men do not support women's rights then, no matter what you do for the women, those rights have little chance of lasting.
We needed to make the economy work for most people. Getting the median income to somewhere around $10-20 per day would have been sufficient for people to embrace a major cultural change and try and build from there, and gradually reduce the power of local "leaders".
Expecting those on a couple of dollars per day to care about politics, religion or education over day to day survival is not going to work.
This is a fallacy which we keep repeating. Economic development does not lead to the embrace of liberal social values - there is abundant evidence of this in the middle east.
With the patriarchy, you are dealing with an entrenched system of social values: an order that has survived millennia. On a historical scale, the alternatives can only be regarded as tentative and experimental. In the afghan case, we can clearly conclude that it failed.
I did not say they would embrace liberal social values, I said with a better standard of living they would embrace major cultural change and reduce the power of local leaders. They would not end up like Norway or Switzerland, but could cease to be a failed and/or extremist state.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
Yep. Would be forever. And would do zero to stop jihadi terrorism as they'd just move. You can't defeat ideology with arms.
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
I’m often told that it doesn’t matter than Biden is senile, he has good people running the show. Who are these people? Who will take responsibility for the impending massacre?
Are there any journalists left in Kabul to capture this humiliation for Pax Americana? All it will need is one prize winning photo from the roof.
Seems pretty clear that less than a year after Biden entered office, this will come to be seen as the defining event of his term. How long until he gets shunted sideways? Or is still too early in his term for the Democrats to do so without implicit admittance that they put in place a president without his marbles?
How is any of this Biden's fault?
The Trump administration negotiated directly with the Taliban from 2018-20. It was the Trump Administration which signed up to the Doha Treaty and chose to accept the promises of the Taliban just as Nixon/Kissinger chose to accept the commitments of the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1973.
Doha was a legal treaty which committed America to withdrawal from Afghanistan in 14 months. Trump and then Biden have honoured that treaty.
They left behind the means for the Afghan Army to defend the country and keep the Taliban confined to the more remote and rural areas.
Yet, within a few weeks, just as with the ARVN in 1975, this well-equipped army has disintegrated. That's what you should be asking instead of making cheap jibes against Biden - why was no one prepared to fight and die for Ghani and his regime?
Why, after 20 years, was no one prepared to fight for this Government?
they are more likely as bad if not worse than the Taliban. The people were only there to get wages , not to be soldiers.
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
In Victorian times the British Army had several goes at 'subduing' what we now know as Afghanistan. Best result was a score-draw.
That Bin Laden was probably in Afghanistan at the material time didn't mean that the Afghan Government had anything to do with 9/11.
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Have you ever been to Vietnam? Prosperous certainly. And it's a while since I was there, but not many police about.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
If it gets that reaction from you confirmation I am absolutely right then.
I would be very concerned if you ever agreed with me on anything
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
Exactly , the "outraged Turnbridge Wells" on here would make you laugh if it was not so tragic and done in their names.
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Have you ever been to Vietnam? Prosperous certainly. And it's a while since I was there, but not many police about.
I was speaking Friday to somebody who has just left Vietnam. The police are cracking down hard, fuelled by a real paranoia about Covid taking off. You now have an allocated time slot to leave your house to go food shopping. It is a level of restriction by the Government not seen since 1975.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
Yep and Bin laden was in Pakistan
He was in Afghanistan, it was the invasion which forced him into Pakistan where US special forces were ultimately able to find him and kill him
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
If it gets that reaction from you confirmation I am absolutely right then
The only thing about your statement is that it is pure hyperbole and nonsense at this stage in the Biden administration
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
With respect Max.... There's no kill switches in Jeeps, M16s aren't massively different to AK47s... so long as the Taliban don't misfuel the Humvees it'll all run. I expect they'll have some mechanics amongst their lot
Sure, but any bigger bits of kit will need parts and maintenance. I guess they could deal under the table with Saudi Arabia for parts but the Americans will probably realise quite quickly.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The Charles Kennedy who was the only leader of a significant party to oppose the madness that was the Iraq War? That Charles Kennedy?
Yes, that Charles Kennedy. I would have certainly voted for Blair over him even as I was campaigning for IDS' Tories at the time.
As I have already said even if there were no WMD Iraq is now a democratic state with a relatively secure government and free of the dictator Saddam Hussein
You sure about that? Democratic and secure, I mean? How many thousands have died in the interim?
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
One might also query his understanding of US history. Wilson screwed up big time, for one.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
Yep. Would be forever. And would do zero to stop jihadi terrorism as they'd just move. You can't defeat ideology with arms.
There has been no major terrorist attack on a big western city on the scale of 9/11 since the invasion of Afghanistan.
Sadly once Kabul falls the likelihood of 9/11 2 will grow stronger every day
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
Exactly , the "outraged Turnbridge Wells" on here would make you laugh if it was not so tragic and done in their names.
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
If it gets that reaction from you confirmation I am absolutely right then
The only thing about your statement is that it is pure hyperbole and nonsense at this stage in the Biden administration
No hyperbole.
If Kabul falls to the Taliban again that will now define the Biden-Harris administration forever no matter what else it does. If Afghanistan becomes a terrorist haven again leading to further attacks on US cities it will probably have doomed Biden's re election hopes too
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
Yep and Bin laden was in Pakistan
He was in Afghanistan, it was the invasion which forced him into Pakistan where US special forces were ultimately able to find him and kill him
He was only killed after 11 years under the de facto protection of the Pakistani security service. As was said of the British, in Afghanistan it pays to be the enemy of the USA, since they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
I agree.
The thing is it's not just the Taliban fighting government forces, there is a number of terrorist groups fighting alongside (recent UN estimate of around 20).
The Taliban just want to control their country with their radical Islam they want to impose on everyone who lives there, they don't care about the outside world all that much. But do you think they will forget the help of those terrorist groups that helped brought them back to power? Of course not, camps will be set up, funding and resources given and a safe harbour.
I just think this is a grave mistake and history will repeat itself.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Have you ever been to Vietnam? Prosperous certainly. And it's a while since I was there, but not many police about.
I was speaking Friday to somebody who has just left Vietnam. The police are cracking down hard, fuelled by a real paranoia about Covid taking off. You now have an allocated time slot to leave your house to go food shopping. It is a level of restriction by the Government not seen since 1975.
Sounds like similar restrictions to Cyprus and Greece earlier. Vietnam is no liberal paradise.
An early start here before more interesting matters such as the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville - I'm on ALPINE STAR each way at 10s against the front two but with eight runners, she finishes third and I still draw - take my attention.
The collapse of the Ghani Government in Afghanistan has been extraordinary and even more sudden than Thieu's South Vietnam in April 1975. Resistance to the Taliban seems to have ended in most cities and latest reports suggest Kabul itself is on the brink of capitulation.
As I said last night, history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce but it's going to be more tragedy, I fear, for the people of Afghanistan who appear, to this observer, to have been abandoned militarily and politically by their leaders. I wonder how many of the local leaders of the Government have boltholes prepared much as happened in Saigon all those years ago.
For the overwhelming majority, there is no escape.
Once again, Republican administrations in Washington, anxious to bend to a growing anti-war sentiment, have come up with "treaties" which superficially look to save face and allow the troops to come home seemingly with honour intact but in truth abandon the residual population and Government.
Biden will be unjustly blamed for Trump's failure just as Ford was for Nixon's.
Yet it comes back to the seminal question - how and where do you fight terror in the 21st Century? If your own citizens can be radicalised via the Internet, what's the point of having thousands of troops stationed in other countries? Why will men fight and die for the Taliban when they won't fight and die for their own Government?
When you are fighting faith and ideas, you need different weapons and different thinking.
It was George McGovern and the Democrats who led opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 and the Democrat majority in Congress who most strongly voted to prohibit US military involvement in Vietnam in 1973 overriding Nixon's veto despite the attempts of him and Kissinger to extend the deadline
McGovern and the Democrats were right to do so. The Vietnam War poisoned several countries, but I suspect the US came off worst.
Had the war continued South Vietnam today may be what South Korea is, a free and prosperous nation
Have you ever been to Vietnam? Prosperous certainly. And it's a while since I was there, but not many police about.
I was speaking Friday to somebody who has just left Vietnam. The police are cracking down hard, fuelled by a real paranoia about Covid taking off. You now have an allocated time slot to leave your house to go food shopping. It is a level of restriction by the Government not seen since 1975.
They were doing so well at one stage against Covid, too. Suspect it's the effect of the Delta variant. Thailand's not as bad, but people are certainly less 'free' than a few months ago.
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
No, you are giving him too much credit there. There is a kernel of pure evil in there.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
I am disappointed in you.
You have been given a gold plated opportunity to confirm Johnson's statesmanship in unravelling Blair's failed military projects, and here you are criticising Biden and Johnson.
Personally I believe the moral argument for keeping the Taliban at bay is compelling, but for once Trump was right that American voters have no desire to spend billions of USD on an ungovernable hell hole they have never heard of.
Afghan rebels, for the last (over a) century have defeated the British Empire, the Soviet Red Army and now the rest of the world.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
And they will vote to remain in the union
Maybe. Maybe not. There is only one way to find out.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
Under the Scotland Act 1998 it is the UK government which will decide the future of the Union actually and the UK government has made clear it will refuse indyref2 and respect the decision of Scots to stay in the UK in 2014.
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
Exactly , the "outraged Turnbridge Wells" on here would make you laugh if it was not so tragic and done in their names.
Tunbridge Wells Malc. Tunbridge Wells.
Time for specsavers I think. However hard to know the names of all these foreign places, I was pretty close.
Biden, last month: "The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. 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 the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan." https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1426801235966021634
You seriously have to question the level of intelligence he’s been provided with by his agencies because there is a great risk now they will be coming back in body bags. I dearly hope not but they must be panicking in the US at the situation.
I infer from what I've been reading this morning that the Taliban have elected to let all the foreigners go. The Americans have sent in thousands of troops to cover the retreat, who'll be much better armed than they are. Fighting an unnecessary battle and taking enormous casualties at the end of a war that they have already won makes little sense.
There is always the risk of a hostage situation or a Black Hawk Down one in the withdrawal, but watching while US, UK and allied forces meekly pack up and go provides a tremendous propaganda image at home and abroad.
In our first retreat from Kabul in the 19th Century, that was exactly what the Aghans did though then massacred the retreating British and Indian forces in the Khyber Paas.
Is anyone else rather worried by the fact that the Taliban will now be in control of plenty of seriously impressive American kit?
Nah, without maintenance it all falls apart pretty quickly. It's not as though the Taliban can get a bunch of US engineers and spare parts to fix it. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of kill switches in that kit which turns it into scrap.
They could try flogging it on the second hand market to China or Russia who might want to reverse engineer it, or the Middle East where they might want to use it.
The AAF don't really have anything that would be worth the effort. A-29, Cessna 206, C-130. Maybe a few 1st gen UH-60s.
Electronics? Engines? Even their fuel is probably of interest to someone. Worst case is they use it to liven up their wedding parties. And it is said that during the Cold War, the Pentagon encouraged UFO reports around one airbase to cover up the fact they were flying Soviet warplanes for training and intelligence purposes.
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
No, you are giving him too much credit there. There is a kernel of pure evil in there.
As you know @HYUFD and I are very different conservative members and we regularly disagree but 'pure evil' is what we witnessed in Plymouth this week, not any political opinion HYUFD expresses or yourself for that matter
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
No, you are giving him too much credit there. There is a kernel of pure evil in there.
Says the man whose almost every waking hour is driven by hatred of the English.
Mind you I note you have in the past said Thatcher had evil traints too so as an admirer of Thatcher I take it as a disguised compliment
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
The IDS chickenhawk party, enthusiastic backers of the war in Iraq, is back!
I fully supported Blair and Bush in their war on terror and IDS too in his fervent backing of them and opposed the weak, isolationist stance Charles Kennedy's LDs took at the time. I did have reservations about Iraq but ironically it is Iraq today which has a relatively secure democratic government and no Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan which the pathetic Biden-Harris administration is handing back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
Not to drag up a tedious, barnacle covered argument from the depths, but exactly which terror was war being waged upon in Iraq?
Yep and Bin laden was in Pakistan
He was in Afghanistan, it was the invasion which forced him into Pakistan where US special forces were ultimately able to find him and kill him
He was only killed after 11 years under the de facto protection of the Pakistani security service. As was said of the British, in Afghanistan it pays to be the enemy of the USA, since they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
It is difficult to be an enemy of the US. But much harder to be their friend. ISTR that was one of the many leaders of S Vietnam.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
And they will vote to remain in the union
Maybe. Maybe not. There is only one way to find out.
OK, hands up: who started the seventeen millionth identical, pointless argument about you-know-where?
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
Under the Scotland Act 1998 it is the UK government which will decide the future of the Union actually and the UK government has made clear it will refuse indyref2 and respect the decision of Scots to stay in the UK in 2014.
Just as it respected the rights of the people of NI to stay in customs union with GB...
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
No, you are giving him too much credit there. There is a kernel of pure evil in there.
Would you like a broom to sweep up the glass you’ve broken with that particular piece of domestic stone throwing?
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
It is not disgusting but it is pure hyperbole and nonsensical
No, you are giving him too much credit there. There is a kernel of pure evil in there.
Says the man whose almost every waking hour is driven by hatred of the English
Looks like Kabul has already been effectively lost
And if it does it is on the Biden-Harris administration, without doubt the weakest, most hapless and useless US administration of the past 100 years in terms of foreign policy. Cutting and running with no responsibility at all to the Afghan people and handing it back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A truly disgusting post.
One might also query his understanding of US history. Wilson screwed up big time, for one.
It is more modern history he is trying to obfuscate. His political parties have been in power (since 2010 in England and 2017-21 in the US) and caused this tragedy in Afghanistan.
Hopefully HYUFD is out there in his little tank, valiantly trying to hold back the Taliban hordes from entering Kabul!
If I was in charge I would never have withdrawn the troops in the first place
Are you going to resign from the Conservative Party in protest at the support given by the British Government to the American Government’s decision?
I stand with Tory MPs from Tobias Ellwood to Tom Tugenhadt who are appalled at this withdrawal, although to be fair to Boris once the US withdrew it was unrealistic for the UK to stay alone. The fault lies with Biden.
Kudos to the LDs too who have attacked Biden's withdrawal as condemning the Afghans to medieval barbarity and us to the return of terrorism
Davey is a proper liberal in the Gladstone and Ashdown mode, prepared to intervene abroad where needed.
The old wet, pacifist social democratic LDs of Charles Kennedy is now thankfully dead for now
Funny how you're solely firing your ire at Biden and have not a word to say about Trump who signed a Treaty committing the USA to withdrawing this year (which Biden has honoured).
Nor to Trump releasing 5000 Taliban prisoners.
Nor George W Bush for letting the Taliban retreat and get safe harbour in Pakistan from which they could regroup.
On topic, inconvenient facts for those who seek to criticise Florida policy. (not really a low vaxx state in any case).
High vaccination states Oregon and Hawaii are struggling with an explosion in covid cases.
Sure but we have loads of cases too. It is deaths, and to a lesser degree hospitalisations that are down, to about 10% of the winter wave.
Though still quite a pressure on hospitals. Mrs Foxy is press ganged back on ICU again this week. She couldn't sleep last night because of the stress of going back.
The original Polo Lounge, so named because wealthy polo players once frequented it, opened at LA’s Beverly Hills Hotel in 1941. Obviously, nobody now goes for the Italian-accented American bistro food. They go there to be in a Hollywood power room; to eat your shrimp, as I once did, two tables down from Whoopi Goldberg, surrounded by the ghosts of Astaire, Garland and Dietrich. At the London version I got to eat a table away from Alex Salmond. And that was the least troubling aspect of my evening.
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
Exactly , the "outraged Turnbridge Wells" on here would make you laugh if it was not so tragic and done in their names.
With respect to Afghanistan and the jihadi mentality as a whole, what specifically are we proposing to do? You can't kill off ideology and belief with guns unless you are prepared to kill everyone. Kill today's Taliban leaders and in a few years the Taliban are back with the next generation.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If necessary we should have kept troops there for 50 to 100 years or if necessary forever.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
I am disappointed in you.
You have been given a gold plated opportunity to confirm Johnson's statesmanship in unravelling Blair's failed military projects, and here you are criticising Biden and Johnson.
Personally I believe the moral argument for keeping the Taliban at bay is compelling, but for once Trump was right that American voters have no desire to spend billions of USD on an ungovernable hell hole they have never heard of.
Afghan rebels, for the last (over a) century have defeated the British Empire, the Soviet Red Army and now the rest of the world.
I supported Blair and Bush's Afghanistan invasion at the time, as indeed did the Tory leader at the time IDS.
I am disappointed in Boris for not being tough enough with Biden, as I said earlier Davey deserves credit for being prepared to do so. Instead it is left to Tory backbenchers like Tugenhadt and Ellwood to say what I think .
American voters may have no desire to keep troops there but that does not mean future events will not prove it to have been necessary
I don’t know why but I’m absolutely devastated about what’s going on in Afghanistan. Like seriously gutted. One can only imagine what life is going to be like for women going forward.
There are plenty just like it , never heard much whining about Yemen where we are supplying the bombs and the planes for the genocide. Britain is a shithole of a country that causes suffering around the world on it's own or as the USA's lapdog. Give it a week or two and normal service will be resumed and no-one will give a crap about Afghanistan, they will be back to empty supermarket shelves or cutting pensioners money.
That's a very cynical, but accurate post and I have posted on both those topics so I am equally at fault. That's life I'm afraid sad as it may be.
Exactly , the "outraged Turnbridge Wells" on here would make you laugh if it was not so tragic and done in their names.
Tunbridge Wells Malc. Tunbridge Wells.
How very dare you.
Royal Tunbridge Wells if you please.
Oh yes, a friend's parents lived there. Mrs was always very insistent on the Royal in the address.
With regard to the tories on the previous thread getting drippy dicks about the informal transmanche regatta which has so adorned out summer...
They are correct in their analysis: this government lacks the fortitude to do any on water operation that would make any difference.
However, what they are missing is that this cannot be fixed by a tory government. This is a Europe wide problem that needs a European solution. However the tories have spent the last five years gleefully shitting on European cooperation in general and the French and particular. They withdrew from the Dublin Convention which would have allowed the legal return of some of the arrivals to other European countries.
It's going to take a government of a different political complexion that can upgrade the UK's relationship with the EU to fix it.
In fairness, Commander(?) Ace, the situation cannot be fixed by THIS Tory government; up until 2015 one could reasonably say that Tory governments were, generally speaking, pro-Europe.
It's only under Johnson and his acolytes that the party has become rabid English Nationalists.
So, what is more likely?
1. the Conservative Party abandoning English Nationalism and becoming pro-Europe again, or 2. a government of a different political complexion taking power
Because one of those two things has to happen to solve the informal transmanche regatta.
Path 2 seems far more likely than path 1.
Consider also that, at least since party leaders were chosen by members, the standard response to defeat is to double down on what the members want and moderation can go to hell.
Suppose the Conservatives lose in 2024. Is the next LotO more likely to be a "Brexit with a human face" type (Hunt, say) or a "Boris's problem was he was just too soft on Europe, bless him" character (Patel or JRM, for example)?
It will always be the more extreme of the two members presented to them by the filtering committee of Tory MPs
In one year, Conservative Party membership increased by 50 per cent. That's ordinary Conservatives enthused by Boris, you understand, and not entryists as you'd suspect with Labour. 2018, 120,000 members; 2019, 180,000. So be slightly careful in guessing which way members will vote in any leadership election. Past performance may be no guide.
Whereas i read on here that Labour was almost broke and could barely pay its head office staff. The Unions don't seem keen to cough up much at the moment.
Talking of trade unions, I’ve just spotted this new market:
Best prices - Unite General Secretary election
Steve Turner 10/11 Gerard Coyne 2/1 Sharon Graham 11/4
I can’t think of a more depressing betting market
How about the Boris Johnson exit date market?
2024 or later 4/6
At least the Scots have an exit route.
They don't, as long as Boris remains PM he has made clear he will refuse indyref2
The Scots will decide the future constitutional status of our country, not Boris Johnson.
And they will vote to remain in the union
Maybe. Maybe not. There is only one way to find out.
I do not disagree but the path to indyref2 is complex and while I do not like @HYUFD attitude and language the next GE is little more than 2 and a half years away and of course covid is still an issue and at present the polls are leaning to remain
I just do not see a legal indyref2 happening this side of the next GE, and any attempt to hold an unofficial one will almost certainly be challenged by Scots within Scotland
Comments
I'm not sure what your wider point is. Yes, it was a messy situation with no good solution. But it was contained. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than what is happening now.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58191440
Along with the compete segregation of women.
Back to the medieval state, by the look of it.
It's the thing Larkin was moaning about in Homage to a Government....
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.
It's hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it's been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds...
And maybe, in the context of Britain's choices, it is not all wrong. There's not a huge amount the UK can do if the USA CBA. Be as humanitarian as we can, I guess. And thank God it's them instead of us.
I am delighted the LDs have now rediscovered a backbone on the war on terror and on this Ed Davey is even stronger than Boris now, I don't disagree.
With the patriarchy, you are dealing with an entrenched system of social values: an order that has survived millennia. On a historical scale, the alternatives can only be regarded as tentative and experimental. In the afghan case, we can clearly conclude that it failed.
This misunderstands why soldiers fight. Almost nobody takes extreme and repeated risks to their lives for Queen and Country. They do it for the others around them. For the shared endeavour. If the ANA won't do it then it's because they don't have that collective bond. That's a failure of recruitment, indoctrination and training probably caused by trying to impose a Western force structure on them and rampant corruption.
Why have we wasted 20 years fighting a battle we cannot win?
If I understand it right, this is (to us) counterintuitive genius - to reduce the cosmic cycles to the most accurate possible sequence of rational numbers (made up of integers for both numerator and divisor, such as 234/567, 61/1, etc.) which can therefore be accurate converted to a sequence of prime integers - and, very easily, the integral numbers of teeth on strings of gears, going one way to multiply and the other to divide. Total solution to the cosmos. And all done with rational numbers. Remembnering that some Greek mathematicians really, really hated irrational numbers.
But cramming it all in, with such ideas as using the same primes where they occur in different sequences to save on gears ... And that mechanism of a pin on w wheel sliding in a slotted bar I've seen elsewhere, in dreadnought gun-aiming computers, in use until very recently in the odd WW2 hangover such as the Belgrano and Iowa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr1uK24SND8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GZa63x3k60 (especially 8:14 for a slotted bar and pin engaging in disc)
Of course those 20th century things had messy continuous data full of irrational numbers, without the elegance of the Greek computer, but they do seem in some ways to be its unwitting heirs.
On indyref2 Boris holds the key hand, not Sturgeon, under the Scotland Act 1998
Whether there will be no more in the next 20 will be the test of whether the Taliban has learnt lessons. If there are, they will be pushed to the outer edges of Afghanistan's cave systems again.
It is time the UK and the conservative party stepped back from foreign military interventions and I really hope Boris does not become involved in any intervention in Afghanistan other than humanitarian
Although that was theoretical, in that it was before the fact. And before we know what we know now.
Resistance after that seems to have been non existent.
Never forget more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in an attack planned by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years combined
Biden has evidently decided that, of the only two available options - staying put forever, or failure - failure is the least unpalatable option. History will judge whether or not he was right.
That Charles Kennedy?
There's no kill switches in Jeeps, M16s aren't massively different to AK47s... so long as the Taliban don't misfuel the Humvees it'll all run. I expect they'll have some mechanics amongst their lot
As I have already said even if there were no WMD Iraq is now a democratic state with a relatively secure government and free of the dictator Saddam Hussein
This may become the most infamous — and devastating — press conference ever held by an American President.
https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1426710333264179214?s=20
That Bin Laden was probably in Afghanistan at the material time didn't mean that the Afghan Government had anything to do with 9/11.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I would be very concerned if you ever agreed with me on anything
Sadly once Kabul falls the likelihood of 9/11 2 will grow stronger every day
If Kabul falls to the Taliban again that will now define the Biden-Harris administration forever no matter what else it does. If Afghanistan becomes a terrorist haven again leading to further attacks on US cities it will probably have doomed Biden's re election hopes too
On topic, inconvenient facts for those who seek to criticise Florida policy. (not really a low vaxx state in any case).
High vaccination states Oregon and Hawaii are struggling with an explosion in covid cases.
The thing is it's not just the Taliban fighting government forces, there is a number of terrorist groups fighting alongside (recent UN estimate of around 20).
The Taliban just want to control their country with their radical Islam they want to impose on everyone who lives there, they don't care about the outside world all that much. But do you think they will forget the help of those terrorist groups that helped brought them back to power? Of course not, camps will be set up, funding and resources given and a safe harbour.
I just think this is a grave mistake and history will repeat itself.
You have been given a gold plated opportunity to confirm Johnson's statesmanship in unravelling Blair's failed military projects, and here you are criticising Biden and Johnson.
Personally I believe the moral argument for keeping the Taliban at bay is compelling, but for once Trump was right that American voters have no desire to spend billions of USD on an ungovernable hell hole they have never heard of.
Afghan rebels, for the last (over a) century have defeated the British Empire, the Soviet Red Army and now the rest of the world.
In our first retreat from Kabul in the 19th Century, that was exactly what the Aghans did though then massacred the retreating British and Indian forces in the Khyber Paas.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9893957/DAN-HODGES-Keir-Starmer-open-goal-right-hes-scared-shoot.html
Mind you I note you have in the past said Thatcher had evil traints too so as an admirer of Thatcher I take it as a disguised compliment
ISTR that was one of the many leaders of S Vietnam.
Nor to Trump releasing 5000 Taliban prisoners.
Nor George W Bush for letting the Taliban retreat and get safe harbour in Pakistan from which they could regroup.
I wonder why solely Biden gets criticism? 🤔
Though still quite a pressure on hospitals. Mrs Foxy is press ganged back on ICU again this week. She couldn't sleep last night because of the stress of going back.
The original Polo Lounge, so named because wealthy polo players once frequented it, opened at LA’s Beverly Hills Hotel in 1941. Obviously, nobody now goes for the Italian-accented American bistro food. They go there to be in a Hollywood power room; to eat your shrimp, as I once did, two tables down from Whoopi Goldberg, surrounded by the ghosts of Astaire, Garland and Dietrich. At the London version I got to eat a table away from Alex Salmond. And that was the least troubling aspect of my evening.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/aug/15/the-polo-lounge-at-the-dorchester-hotel-dismal-food-at-eye-popping-prices-restaurant-review
And the Missus'. They'd flee for a mountain cave.
Royal Tunbridge Wells if you please.
I am disappointed in Boris for not being tough enough with Biden, as I said earlier Davey deserves credit for being prepared to do so. Instead it is left to Tory backbenchers like Tugenhadt and Ellwood to say what I think .
American voters may have no desire to keep troops there but that does not mean future events will not prove it to have been necessary
I just do not see a legal indyref2 happening this side of the next GE, and any attempt to hold an unofficial one will almost certainly be challenged by Scots within Scotland