I don't think the average American voter will care. Unless there is a massacre of US citizens in the withdrawal process - the Taliban seem content to let people go though. The USA is a parochial nation on stuff like this now.
I don’t think that’s true: ultimately America’s position in the world has been dented by this. And Americans do care about how they are seen by the world.
But these things can also be very short lived. From the disaster of Carter’s military mission in iran, to the fall of communism was less than the time between now and the Global Financial Crisis.
Who is the Reagan figure you are anticipating to turn the tide?
Were I a moderate US Democrat, I would be urging everyone I knew to register Republican for 2024 to coalesce around a sane non-Trump nominee. Hard to see past Romney.
Romney will be 77 at the next election!
After two septuagenarians in a row, maybe they might want to look at someone a little younger, who still has a good mind and doesn’t need an afternoon nap?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if 2024 produced a President none of us expected.
Obama came from nowhere. Trump came from nowhere. If Iowa hadn’t messed up its count, we might have had President Buttigieg.
I will continue to sell the favorites.
Agreed. There’s a hundred Senators and fifty Governors, who could all come from nowhere.
Theoretically, it’s difficult to see past Kamala Harris for the Dem nomination, she’ll either be the incumbent VP or the President by 2024, and is unlikely to be challenged even if she underperforms between now and then.
The Republican side, on the other hand, really could be anyone. Presumably they will very quickly sort themselves in the primaries, to rally against Trump or whoever he stands beside.
Should Trump win the nomination, it’s hard to see how he would lose against Biden or Harris. The Democrat hierarchy must surely realise this and be prepared to push someone else?
Robert has a far better understanding than me of how the machinations of primary politics unfold. But if Trump is a) not in court, b) has a pulse, everything we know about the man say he’ll run. And the way he still dominates the party and fundraising surely points to him being nominated, no matter how terrible a candidate he is on paper.
Disagree, I think almost any Republican beats Harris, except Trump.
Harris' latest approval rating has her on just 46%, even lower than the 47% Trump got in 2020.
Never mind winning the election, Trump could even win the popular vote against Harris, she is Hillary 2 in personality but without Hillary's centrist politics
Quick question for those who believe Harris would beat Trump. Why? She is unpopular, awkward, doesn't have much in the way of achievements and, as HYFUD says, Hillary Mark 2 without the good bits.
Just because she is not Donald Trump doesn't guarantee victory.
Well, I started by saying that pretty much any other Republican would beat Harris, so I obviously think she’s an appalling candidate.
But Trump in 2024 will be weaker than in 2020. He’ll be mentally less sharp. He’ll be worn down by investigations. He’ll be as old as Biden was in 2020, only less healthy and with more scandals.
His behavior around the last election will also not have endeared him to anyone who is not a hardcore Trump supporter.
He was a sore loser, and I don’t think that is a winning strategy.
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
The advice could well have been that no matter what you put in, a secular(ish) government in Afghanistan will not provide the ideological structure that people will actually die in a ditch to defend.
{Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres to the red courtesy phone, please}
From what I've seen over the weekend a massive issue is the level of corruption across Afghan government so that a lot of the money spent on troops and equipment has never made it. There are reports that front line police and soldiers don't even get paid on a regular basis and so on.
That's the standard pattern across much of the developing world. And stamping out that kind of corruption is very, very hard. It's a social issue which relates to loyalties being primarily familiar and clannish, rather than national. So everyone takes from the "national" resources to help "their" groups.
EDIT: My references to Montesinos was that he created a genuinely populist counter-revolutionary movement. One that wiped out the revolution. The Peruvian civil war is an interesting study.
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Reports this morning of Al Qaeda and IS prisoners being released from jails across Afghanistan.
They will all be heading to the West to set up terrorist cells as the Biden and Harris disaster continues
Hmm. I'm a bit sceptical about that. Not sure the Taliban would calculate that it's in their interest to have ISIS running loose in the region.
In releasing all the mainly Taliban prisoners in government jails in recent days, the Taliban will also by default have released all the IS and AQ prisoners being held there too even if unintentionally
Pope Francis 'wants to hold Mass in Scotland' during COP26 summit in Glasgow
The report quotes a source saying the Pope would like to say a Mass for Scots.
“It would have to fit in with his address to the conference and his meetings with the bishops. There is some doubt about whether it can be fitted in, but the Pope says Mass every day and would like to say a Mass for the people of Scotland.“
Why is that news/controversial? I’m sure there will be some logistics in making it COVID compliant but that’s it
Well, it’s not controversial (does absolutely everything we discuss on here have to be controversial?), but it is most certainly news! Papal visits are extremely rare and have historically been extremely popular events.
There have only ever been two papal visits to Scotland:
5th century: conversion of Scotland to Christianity begins 1982 papal visit 2010 papal visit 2021 papal visit
So, yes Charles, this is news! (Average is about one visit per 500 years.)
The 1982 visit is imprinted on my childhood memory. It was immense.
You can relive that experience by visiting the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland, Lancashire. They have a "Popemobile" from that visit.
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Last night one of the PB Bidenites - perhaps @kinabalu - was claiming the Fall of Kabul was nothing like Saigon because we hadn't seen real desperation, people clinging on to the legs of choppers etc
"Reuters is reporting witness claims that at least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the victims were killed by gunshots or in a stampede, Reuters said. U.S. troops, who are in charge of the airport, earlier fired in the air to scatter the crowd, a U.S. official said. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the deaths."
It's turning into a bloodbath. And it is all on Biden
I don't think the average American voter will care. Unless there is a massacre of US citizens in the withdrawal process - the Taliban seem content to let people go though. The USA is a parochial nation on stuff like this now.
I don’t think that’s true: ultimately America’s position in the world has been dented by this. And Americans do care about how they are seen by the world.
But these things can also be very short lived. From the disaster of Carter’s military mission in iran, to the fall of communism was less than the time between now and the Global Financial Crisis.
Who is the Reagan figure you are anticipating to turn the tide?
Were I a moderate US Democrat, I would be urging everyone I knew to register Republican for 2024 to coalesce around a sane non-Trump nominee. Hard to see past Romney.
Romney will be 77 at the next election!
After two septuagenarians in a row, maybe they might want to look at someone a little younger, who still has a good mind and doesn’t need an afternoon nap?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if 2024 produced a President none of us expected.
Obama came from nowhere. Trump came from nowhere. If Iowa hadn’t messed up its count, we might have had President Buttigieg.
I will continue to sell the favorites.
Agreed. There’s a hundred Senators and fifty Governors, who could all come from nowhere.
Theoretically, it’s difficult to see past Kamala Harris for the Dem nomination, she’ll either be the incumbent VP or the President by 2024, and is unlikely to be challenged even if she underperforms between now and then.
The Republican side, on the other hand, really could be anyone. Presumably they will very quickly sort themselves in the primaries, to rally against Trump or whoever he stands beside.
Should Trump win the nomination, it’s hard to see how he would lose against Biden or Harris. The Democrat hierarchy must surely realise this and be prepared to push someone else?
Robert has a far better understanding than me of how the machinations of primary politics unfold. But if Trump is a) not in court, b) has a pulse, everything we know about the man say he’ll run. And the way he still dominates the party and fundraising surely points to him being nominated, no matter how terrible a candidate he is on paper.
I don't think the average American voter will care. Unless there is a massacre of US citizens in the withdrawal process - the Taliban seem content to let people go though. The USA is a parochial nation on stuff like this now.
I don’t think that’s true: ultimately America’s position in the world has been dented by this. And Americans do care about how they are seen by the world.
But these things can also be very short lived. From the disaster of Carter’s military mission in iran, to the fall of communism was less than the time between now and the Global Financial Crisis.
Who is the Reagan figure you are anticipating to turn the tide?
Were I a moderate US Democrat, I would be urging everyone I knew to register Republican for 2024 to coalesce around a sane non-Trump nominee. Hard to see past Romney.
Romney will be 77 at the next election!
After two septuagenarians in a row, maybe they might want to look at someone a little younger, who still has a good mind and doesn’t need an afternoon nap?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if 2024 produced a President none of us expected.
Obama came from nowhere. Trump came from nowhere. If Iowa hadn’t messed up its count, we might have had President Buttigieg.
I will continue to sell the favorites.
Agreed. There’s a hundred Senators and fifty Governors, who could all come from nowhere.
Theoretically, it’s difficult to see past Kamala Harris for the Dem nomination, she’ll either be the incumbent VP or the President by 2024, and is unlikely to be challenged even if she underperforms between now and then.
The Republican side, on the other hand, really could be anyone. Presumably they will very quickly sort themselves in the primaries, to rally against Trump or whoever he stands beside.
Should Trump win the nomination, it’s hard to see how he would lose against Biden or Harris. The Democrat hierarchy must surely realise this and be prepared to push someone else?
Robert has a far better understanding than me of how the machinations of primary politics unfold. But if Trump is a) not in court, b) has a pulse, everything we know about the man say he’ll run. And the way he still dominates the party and fundraising surely points to him being nominated, no matter how terrible a candidate he is on paper.
Disagree, I think almost any Republican beats Harris, except Trump.
I'm not sure. If things continue as they are - not just on Afghanistan but on the immigration crisis, parent backlash against CRT in swing states and the rise in inflation - Trump's line will be "I told you this is what would happen." I'm not sure how Biden or Harris counteract this
Rise in inflation? Americans have fixed interest mortgages.
A modest rise in inflation is manna from Heaven for most Americans.
Right now, the US is booming. It may or may not continue to boom, and it may also be a little generous to attribute that success to Biden.
But right now, unemployment is falling and wages rising.
Last inflation figures were 5.4% and that is before the price increases for a whole range of everyday goods - which has been widely flagged by companies in their results - comes in next month.
Yes, inflation is great if you have a mortgage but what matters more if you don't - and therefore more likely to be at the bottom end of society - is the price of your everyday goods.
Most Americans have debt, often lots of it.
Now, if wages were lagging inflation, you might have a point. But the reality is that wages are surging even more than consumer goods prices.
Surveys of American economic satisfaction will be at all time highs in the next six months.
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
No-one has yet invaded a country with nukes. The assumption is, generally, that if a nuclear state is *really* losing, they will have nothing to lose. So might as well start the apocalypse.
A couple of airbursts in the Taiwan Strait would wipe out a Chinese invasion, without creating mass civilian casualties. Of course, the Chinese response.....
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
But a source told me Dominic Raab didn’t talk to UK ambassadors in 7 nearby countries. Nor did he talk to Pakistan’s foreign minister until the day Kabul fell
US has got a troop surge on the way, 6k inbound to secure key infrastructure to allow US citizens and allies out of the country. It will be interesting to see how the Taliban reacts as 6k US troops is probably enough to retake the whole country. With the US in charge of the airport it's difficult to see how they can deny entry though.
I don't think the average American voter will care. Unless there is a massacre of US citizens in the withdrawal process - the Taliban seem content to let people go though. The USA is a parochial nation on stuff like this now.
I don’t think that’s true: ultimately America’s position in the world has been dented by this. And Americans do care about how they are seen by the world.
But these things can also be very short lived. From the disaster of Carter’s military mission in iran, to the fall of communism was less than the time between now and the Global Financial Crisis.
Who is the Reagan figure you are anticipating to turn the tide?
Were I a moderate US Democrat, I would be urging everyone I knew to register Republican for 2024 to coalesce around a sane non-Trump nominee. Hard to see past Romney.
Romney will be 77 at the next election!
After two septuagenarians in a row, maybe they might want to look at someone a little younger, who still has a good mind and doesn’t need an afternoon nap?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if 2024 produced a President none of us expected.
Obama came from nowhere. Trump came from nowhere. If Iowa hadn’t messed up its count, we might have had President Buttigieg.
I will continue to sell the favorites.
Agreed. There’s a hundred Senators and fifty Governors, who could all come from nowhere.
Theoretically, it’s difficult to see past Kamala Harris for the Dem nomination, she’ll either be the incumbent VP or the President by 2024, and is unlikely to be challenged even if she underperforms between now and then.
The Republican side, on the other hand, really could be anyone. Presumably they will very quickly sort themselves in the primaries, to rally against Trump or whoever he stands beside.
Should Trump win the nomination, it’s hard to see how he would lose against Biden or Harris. The Democrat hierarchy must surely realise this and be prepared to push someone else?
Robert has a far better understanding than me of how the machinations of primary politics unfold. But if Trump is a) not in court, b) has a pulse, everything we know about the man say he’ll run. And the way he still dominates the party and fundraising surely points to him being nominated, no matter how terrible a candidate he is on paper.
Disagree, I think almost any Republican beats Harris, except Trump.
Harris' latest approval rating has her on just 46%, even lower than the 47% Trump got in 2020.
Never mind winning the election, Trump could even win the popular vote against Harris, she is Hillary 2 in personality but without Hillary's centrist politics
Your regular reminder that you were adamant Trump was going to be handsomely reelected.
Wrong, I always said Biden would win the popular vote, I just said the EC was too close to call.
In the end the EC result was not decided for days
It wasn’t too close to call whatsoever though was it? Have some humility.
Georgia was won by Biden by 0.23%, Arizona was won by Biden by 0.31% and Wisconsin was won by Biden by just 0.63%.
Had Trump won those 3 states he would have got 272 EC votes and been re elected
Tobias Ellwood warns on @skynews that terrorist orgs are regrouping - with risk of a major attack:
"I predict another major hit on the West, the likes of 9/11, because the terrorists will want to bookend our time in Afghanistan to show how futile the last two decades have been" https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1427172010145222660
A year or two ago there was a bad habit of brief power cuts around 8-10am. Just had one (luckily, and to my surprise, it seemed I saved at a good moment and didn't lost any work). Hope this isn't a recurrence of the pattern seen before.
I don't think the average American voter will care. Unless there is a massacre of US citizens in the withdrawal process - the Taliban seem content to let people go though. The USA is a parochial nation on stuff like this now.
I don’t think that’s true: ultimately America’s position in the world has been dented by this. And Americans do care about how they are seen by the world.
But these things can also be very short lived. From the disaster of Carter’s military mission in iran, to the fall of communism was less than the time between now and the Global Financial Crisis.
Who is the Reagan figure you are anticipating to turn the tide?
Were I a moderate US Democrat, I would be urging everyone I knew to register Republican for 2024 to coalesce around a sane non-Trump nominee. Hard to see past Romney.
Romney will be 77 at the next election!
After two septuagenarians in a row, maybe they might want to look at someone a little younger, who still has a good mind and doesn’t need an afternoon nap?
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if 2024 produced a President none of us expected.
Obama came from nowhere. Trump came from nowhere. If Iowa hadn’t messed up its count, we might have had President Buttigieg.
I will continue to sell the favorites.
Agreed. There’s a hundred Senators and fifty Governors, who could all come from nowhere.
Theoretically, it’s difficult to see past Kamala Harris for the Dem nomination, she’ll either be the incumbent VP or the President by 2024, and is unlikely to be challenged even if she underperforms between now and then.
The Republican side, on the other hand, really could be anyone. Presumably they will very quickly sort themselves in the primaries, to rally against Trump or whoever he stands beside.
Should Trump win the nomination, it’s hard to see how he would lose against Biden or Harris. The Democrat hierarchy must surely realise this and be prepared to push someone else?
Robert has a far better understanding than me of how the machinations of primary politics unfold. But if Trump is a) not in court, b) has a pulse, everything we know about the man say he’ll run. And the way he still dominates the party and fundraising surely points to him being nominated, no matter how terrible a candidate he is on paper.
Disagree, I think almost any Republican beats Harris, except Trump.
Harris' latest approval rating has her on just 46%, even lower than the 47% Trump got in 2020.
Never mind winning the election, Trump could even win the popular vote against Harris, she is Hillary 2 in personality but without Hillary's centrist politics
Quick question for those who believe Harris would beat Trump. Why? She is unpopular, awkward, doesn't have much in the way of achievements and, as HYFUD says, Hillary Mark 2 without the good bits.
Just because she is not Donald Trump doesn't guarantee victory.
Well, I started by saying that pretty much any other Republican would beat Harris, so I obviously think she’s an appalling candidate.
But Trump in 2024 will be weaker than in 2020. He’ll be mentally less sharp. He’ll be worn down by investigations. He’ll be as old as Biden was in 2020, only less healthy and with more scandals.
His behavior around the last election will also not have endeared him to anyone who is not a hardcore Trump supporter.
He was a sore loser, and I don’t think that is a winning strategy.
I don’t think any of that will really hold, with the exception that his post election behaviour turned off plenty of moderates that gave him the benefit of the doubt. It is really going to depend on just how hapless the next three years of leadership will be. The omens on that are not promising.
Can’t help but feel the Republican Party will rue the day they didn’t exclude Trump from further office.
The US isn't going to fuck about with the airport now that they have it. Anyone who isn't a US citizen or known ally (a British soldier) will be treated as a hostile and fired upon. Standard operating procedure.
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
The advice could well have been that no matter what you put in, a secular(ish) government in Afghanistan will not provide the ideological structure that people will actually die in a ditch to defend.
{Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres to the red courtesy phone, please}
Lots of people will go to great lengths to avoid being stoned, decapitated and hanged, as a glance at Kabul airport shows. If secular government doesn't fly find a slightly nicer kinda religious bod to run the place. You can't just sit on your arse and write off 20 years and 5,000 lives and $100bn and say it was all too difficult, all along.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
The fact of the withdrawal is not all on Biden
The grotesque chaos and bloodshed, I am afraid, is very much on him. Trump didn't order it to be done this way. Biden is in charge
"BREAKING NEWS - Locals near Kabul airport claim that three young men who were holding themselves tightly in the tires of an airplane fell on top of people's houses. One of the locals confirmed this and said that the fall of these people made a loud and terrifying noise."
Last night one of the PB Bidenites - perhaps @kinabalu - was claiming the Fall of Kabul was nothing like Saigon because we hadn't seen real desperation, people clinging on to the legs of choppers etc
"Reuters is reporting witness claims that at least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the victims were killed by gunshots or in a stampede, Reuters said. U.S. troops, who are in charge of the airport, earlier fired in the air to scatter the crowd, a U.S. official said. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the deaths."
It's turning into a bloodbath. And it is all on Biden
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Pope Francis 'wants to hold Mass in Scotland' during COP26 summit in Glasgow
The report quotes a source saying the Pope would like to say a Mass for Scots.
“It would have to fit in with his address to the conference and his meetings with the bishops. There is some doubt about whether it can be fitted in, but the Pope says Mass every day and would like to say a Mass for the people of Scotland.“
Why is that news/controversial? I’m sure there will be some logistics in making it COVID compliant but that’s it
Well, it’s not controversial (does absolutely everything we discuss on here have to be controversial?), but it is most certainly news! Papal visits are extremely rare and have historically been extremely popular events.
There have only ever been two papal visits to Scotland:
5th century: conversion of Scotland to Christianity begins 1982 papal visit 2010 papal visit 2021 papal visit
So, yes Charles, this is news! (Average is about one visit per 500 years.)
The 1982 visit is imprinted on my childhood memory. It was immense.
You can relive that experience by visiting the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland, Lancashire. They have a "Popemobile" from that visit.
Tobias Ellwood warns on @skynews that terrorist orgs are regrouping - with risk of a major attack:
"I predict another major hit on the West, the likes of 9/11, because the terrorists will want to bookend our time in Afghanistan to show how futile the last two decades have been" https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1427172010145222660
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Totally empty threat though isn’t it.
Not if they do get nuclear weapons
I see our resident warmonger is up and about today already!
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
Of course not. The whole of the CIA and the Pentagon look like muppets too, not to mention Trump, the legislature and previous presidents back to and including Bush.
A year or two ago there was a bad habit of brief power cuts around 8-10am. Just had one (luckily, and to my surprise, it seemed I saved at a good moment and didn't lost any work). Hope this isn't a recurrence of the pattern seen before.
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
The advice could well have been that no matter what you put in, a secular(ish) government in Afghanistan will not provide the ideological structure that people will actually die in a ditch to defend.
{Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres to the red courtesy phone, please}
Lots of people will go to great lengths to avoid being stoned, decapitated and hanged, as a glance at Kabul airport shows. If secular government doesn't fly find a slightly nicer kinda religious bod to run the place. You can't just sit on your arse and write off 20 years and 5,000 lives and $100bn and say it was all too difficult, all along.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
The kind of people and government that would create the enthusiasm to have credibility in Afghanistan... well, they are not going to understand the place of urinal art in the consciousness of the Women's Liberation movement.
How could you suggest supporting people like that?
On-topic: fair or not, this is catastrophically bad for Biden.
I do think whoever raised the point about advice had a good line, though. Was the execution of this so shambolic because Biden made a stupid decision and defied advice, or was the advice he given very poor and his decision, on that basis, more reasonable?
It doesn't affect the PR side of things but if US intelligence/military guidance is so shockingly bad, that's not great for the country.
Not Afghanistan, but I have come back to work this morning with an email from our logistics company with another price rise. They have now given their drivers a total of 25.5% pay rise since April, are still losing drivers, there are not enough drivers in the South West at any price.
At some point the companies will realise that pay rises aren't the solution to not enough drivers as the "winner" will end up with a wage bill +50% AND a shortage of drivers. The "market solution" proposed by Philip doesn't exist.
It absolutely exists, if truck driver wages go up to £80k per year there will be a queue of people who want to do it.
*sigh* It will take 18 - 24 months to train sufficient drivers. So say the Road Haulage Association who I imagine know more about this than we do. So you can pay £100k a year and still have a driver shortage.
Better pay and conditions will help recruit and retain drivers as a long term solution. It does not provide a short term solution as you are simply stealing drivers from one haulier to another. A huge cost increase without actually fixing the immediate driver shortage.
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
Of course not. The whole of the CIA and the Pentagon look like muppets too, not to mention Trump, the legislature and previous presidents back to and including Bush.
All you say can be true, and surely is true, but it is the president-of-the-moment who pays the price at the next elections, and that is Biden
And he really is culpable, anyway, for the timing and manner of this withdrawal, when - by all accounts - plenty of advisors said Don't do it, or Don't do it like this
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
Of course not. The whole of the CIA and the Pentagon look like muppets too, not to mention Trump, the legislature and previous presidents back to and including Bush.
It is only thanks to Bush the Taliban and Al Qaeda were removed from Afghanistan in the first place.
It is Biden who let them back in, yes Trump also shares some of the blame for this defeat for enabling the withdrawal process but not Bush. Bush was the one who removed the Taliban and looks like a genius compared to the incumbent and his predecessor today
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Totally empty threat though isn’t it.
Not if they do get nuclear weapons
Given their wealth, technological preeminence and existing nuclear energy plants, would we be astonished to learn that they've had them all along? And that Beijing knows this? If North Korea can do it...
Last night one of the PB Bidenites - perhaps @kinabalu - was claiming the Fall of Kabul was nothing like Saigon because we hadn't seen real desperation, people clinging on to the legs of choppers etc
"Reuters is reporting witness claims that at least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the victims were killed by gunshots or in a stampede, Reuters said. U.S. troops, who are in charge of the airport, earlier fired in the air to scatter the crowd, a U.S. official said. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the deaths."
It's turning into a bloodbath. And it is all on Biden
So US soldiers, sent to rescue Afghanistan from the Taliban, are now shooting and killing Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban, because America decided to abandon these civilians to the Taliban, over a weekend
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
The advice could well have been that no matter what you put in, a secular(ish) government in Afghanistan will not provide the ideological structure that people will actually die in a ditch to defend.
{Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres to the red courtesy phone, please}
Lots of people will go to great lengths to avoid being stoned, decapitated and hanged, as a glance at Kabul airport shows. If secular government doesn't fly find a slightly nicer kinda religious bod to run the place. You can't just sit on your arse and write off 20 years and 5,000 lives and $100bn and say it was all too difficult, all along.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
Obvs no good options, but for those who criticise USA getting out; how long, in their estimation, would the US have to stay for those in Afghanistan who want a moderately free society to be able and willing to have an army able to defend them.
There is no such thing as a free society without strong armed force willing and able to defend it.
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
Of course not. The whole of the CIA and the Pentagon look like muppets too, not to mention Trump, the legislature and previous presidents back to and including Bush.
All you say can be true, and surely is true, but it is the president-of-the-moment who pays the price at the next elections, and that is Biden
And he really is culpable, anyway, for the timing and manner of this withdrawal, when - by all accounts - plenty of advisors said Don't do it, or Don't do it like this
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
Another decade, at least. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/ The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials. The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official. Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers....,/i>
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
It is called the real world
You are talking dangerous tripe and making an utter fool of yourself
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
Yes, but, our Defence Secretary has already admitted we won't get all of our people out
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
@HYUFD says some mad stuff - tanks to Scotland - but his point about Taiwan possessing nukes is perfectly coherent, indeed sensible
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan looks increasingly likely, with America visibly shrinking away, and China is so much more powerful than Taiwan, without American help the only way Taiwan could fend off a Chinese takeover is nukes.
As Ishmael says, it would be surprising if the Taiwanese are not already close to owning nukes anyway, the logic is so obvious. Apparently Japan is the same: they aren't technically a "nuclear" power, but they have all the ingredients and technology ready to go, so that nuclear bombs or missiles could be assembled in hours
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
In what sense was the banking crisis a 'defining humiliation'?
If you take a slightly longer view since the end of WW2, for humilations you have Suez, Siagon, 9/11 and now potentially* Kabul.
Against which have been clear successes in the Cold War and numerous technological advances.
Pretty much even overall.
(*Too soon to tell - everything is magnified at close distance. I suspect it may come to be seen as major humiliation alongside the fall of Saigon but sometimes events that seem huge at the time achieve lesser significance as the years pass, e.g. Sputnik.)
Push the UK government to • Form an international coalition to provide routes, funding + safe-haven for millions of refugees, with homes for them in Britain and across the West • And dramatically increase UK aid and development spend for Afghans trapped in the country https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1427175940539441154
BoZo and chums just voted to reduce Foreign Aid...
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
Yes, but, our Defence Secretary has already admitted we won't get all of our people out
Wasn't that before the US committed 6k troops to secure a route to the airport and get everyone out though?
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Totally empty threat though isn’t it.
Not if they do get nuclear weapons
Given their wealth, technological preeminence and existing nuclear energy plants, would we be astonished to learn that they've had them all along? And that Beijing knows this? If North Korea can do it...
I have heard it said that Taiwan, like Japan has an interesting variation on a nuclear deterrent.
They both have plutonium. And very high end missile technology.
They publicly state they are non-nuclear states and allow comprehensive inspections to verify this, in accord with the international agreements they have signed.
In both cases they could have the bomb, probably before lunch.
Yes, the plutonium in both countries is "civil" - that is, *mostly* high burnup. Which means lots of Pu-240 in it. Which makes it less good for nukes.
Though, back in the 60s the US detonated a weapon with 20% 240 - which is a very high percentage. Among other things, the core would have been literally red hot from nuclear decay - which would mean and active cooling system.
In addition, if you simply keep the the plutonium around for years, the 240 decays into other elements and then can be separated chemically. Both countries have civilian plutonium that is multiple 240 half lives (7 years) old.
Fascinating look into the behind the scenes debates with Biden in last few months:
"The president told his national security team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that he was convinced that no matter what the United States did, Afghanistan was almost certainly headed into another civil war — one Washington could not prevent, but also, in his view, one it could not be drawn into."
"If the Afghan government could not hold off the Taliban now, aides said he asked, when would they be able to? None of the Pentagon officials could answer the question."
Sounds pretty clear and hard headed to me, no matter how many (including people like DavidL on here) are determined to continue to believe that Biden has a brain full of mush and struggles to tie his shoe laces.
If the advice was that the 300,000 strong US trained and equipped army was helpless against 90,000 taliban, the answer should be: after we have rethought our training and equiping strategy, and taken another five years to do it fucking properly. Never seen a more spineless argument.
The advice could well have been that no matter what you put in, a secular(ish) government in Afghanistan will not provide the ideological structure that people will actually die in a ditch to defend.
{Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres to the red courtesy phone, please}
From what I've seen over the weekend a massive issue is the level of corruption across Afghan government so that a lot of the money spent on troops and equipment has never made it. There are reports that front line police and soldiers don't even get paid on a regular basis and so on.
So the modern Afghanistan ended up with corrupt elites, a westernised middle class who wont fight and a peasant army who haven't been paid and who are sympathetic to the insurgents.
With the foreign embassies hiding in the green zone thinking their 'nation building' is a success.
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
It is called the real world
You are talking dangerous tripe and making an utter fool of yourself
It would be dangerous if he had any power but fortunately Epping council does not yet possess nuclear weapons.
OT "only" twenty eight and a half hours to Trinidad!:
By BOAC Constellation to Trinidad, 1953. From May that year, airlines were allowed to offer a reduced fare for a reduced service, and Tourist Class (‘Coach’ in the US) was born. An off-season return ticket went down from £254 (£7,145 in 2019) to £173 13s (£4,866).
But a source told me Dominic Raab didn’t talk to UK ambassadors in 7 nearby countries. Nor did he talk to Pakistan’s foreign minister until the day Kabul fell
It's definitely not all on Biden unless one is almost absurdly partisan.
Of course not. The whole of the CIA and the Pentagon look like muppets too, not to mention Trump, the legislature and previous presidents back to and including Bush.
All you say can be true, and surely is true, but it is the president-of-the-moment who pays the price at the next elections, and that is Biden
And he really is culpable, anyway, for the timing and manner of this withdrawal, when - by all accounts - plenty of advisors said Don't do it, or Don't do it like this
Ofcourse we can't know hypothetically, but the problem is these are all things Trump would do - in fact they've got Trumpian hallmarks all over them, as he first set the paramaters of the plan. Ignore all advisers, act at breakneck speed, tell troops to be as recklessly with non-americans as he was when bombing Isis compared to Obama ; America First. I would say it's on Biden only in the sense that he's apparently taken too much from the Trump playbook now, moving from following his blue-collar support at home to signs of the same unconsultative approach around the world. If I were him, I would put absolutely everything into getting a large as possible a stimulus package passed to save his legacy.
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
It is called the real world
You are talking dangerous tripe and making an utter fool of yourself
So glad you are not a defence minister BigG.
Not only would Bin Laden still be alive and never mind the Taliban retaking Afghanistan they would never have lost it in the first place but also you would guarantee Taiwan would fall to Beijing without a second glance.
If you are the Taiwanese government you obviously would want nuclear weapons capability to be part of your defence capabilities, you are very naive sometimes
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
No-one has yet invaded a country with nukes. The assumption is, generally, that if a nuclear state is *really* losing, they will have nothing to lose. So might as well start the apocalypse.
A couple of airbursts in the Taiwan Strait would wipe out a Chinese invasion, without creating mass civilian casualties. Of course, the Chinese response.....
On the potential Chinese response I have no expertise on this in particular but if the point of the exercise is supposed to be to reunify the single country of China, it seems complicated to do it by nuking the bit of your country you're supposed to be reunifying with.
Since the end of the Cold War, I would argue there have been three defining humiliations for Western power. 9/11, the banking crisis, and the fall of Kabul.
The trouble with the last of these three, is that it invites further impactful humiliations of even greater severity. Were I living in Taiwan, this morning I’d be making plans to wind up my financials affairs and get out of dodge.
Or else get nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons would be a poor deterrent against against China blockading the ports or using conventional troops. They are only really a useful deterrent in preventing someone else using nuclear weapons against you. See Yes Minister.
No-one has yet invaded a country with nukes. The assumption is, generally, that if a nuclear state is *really* losing, they will have nothing to lose. So might as well start the apocalypse.
A couple of airbursts in the Taiwan Strait would wipe out a Chinese invasion, without creating mass civilian casualties. Of course, the Chinese response.....
On the potential Chinese response I have no expertise on this in particular but if the point of the exercise is supposed to be to reunify the single country of China, it seems complicated to do it by nuking the bit of your country you're supposed to be reunifying with.
Hmmmmm
"We had to destroy Taiwan to make it part of China"
The funny thing is, I could see some of the Chinese government saying that.....
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
There was a woman Afghan MP on R4 this morning saying she had chosen to stay, as she felt it wrong to abandon the people she represented.
From Kabul to Melbourne, it’s been a good week for authoritarianism.
@bridgerollo The family who hosted the illegal engagement party says they’ve been subject to intense cyber bullying. “We did wrong, but the hate coming out way is just so mean. So far we are all isolating & have received negative results.” They’ve asked for forgiveness @abcmelbourne
Not Afghanistan, but I have come back to work this morning with an email from our logistics company with another price rise. They have now given their drivers a total of 25.5% pay rise since April, are still losing drivers, there are not enough drivers in the South West at any price.
At some point the companies will realise that pay rises aren't the solution to not enough drivers as the "winner" will end up with a wage bill +50% AND a shortage of drivers. The "market solution" proposed by Philip doesn't exist.
It absolutely exists, if truck driver wages go up to £80k per year there will be a queue of people who want to do it.
*sigh* It will take 18 - 24 months to train sufficient drivers. So say the Road Haulage Association who I imagine know more about this than we do. So you can pay £100k a year and still have a driver shortage.
Better pay and conditions will help recruit and retain drivers as a long term solution. It does not provide a short term solution as you are simply stealing drivers from one haulier to another. A huge cost increase without actually fixing the immediate driver shortage.
There are some other effects that come into play as costs rise. There will be some people who are tempted into the market, who do have current licences, but who don't want to drive for current wages. For example my boss has a current HGV ticket, because he moves his traction engine round on an old lowloader. He's not going to drive commercially at current wages, but if they got to £80k a year, I bet he'd start taking some shifts. Lots of farmers have HGV tickets, again, if prices rise enough they'll start making a few quid out of it. These people won't be enough to solve the shortage, but will make a dent in it.
Another effect will be that companies will become more efficient in utilisation. The more it costs per mile to run a truck, the more it matters what you do with it. I work for an engineering contractors. We often get stuff delivered to our yard, to sit in its crate for a week or two before being collected and taken to the customers site. If haulage starts costing us lots, we will probably start getting stuff delivered directly, rather than trucking it up and down the country. Same with back-loads. The more it costs to run a lorry, the more operators will attempt to maximise efficiency by taking backloads instead of running empty milage. Some stuff either won't get moved, or will be transported by smaller vehicles (not requiring HGV licenses). Its a mixed bag, some of it is good, some of it is bad, some of it doesn't matter much, but just assuming both demand and supply are completly inelastic is very flawed.
Scene of three Afghans falling from an American plane Locals say the men were hiding in the tires or fuses of the plane, which fell on the roofs of houses near Hamed Karzai International Airport as it took off. #ZAWIANEWS #Kabul #SanctionOnPakistan #Afghanistan #Talibans
It's like a nightmarish mix of 9/11, Saigon and a climate change disaster movie.
These are searing images, and I just don't see how Biden can polish them away now. They cannot be unseen. But, who knows. Humans move on pretty quickly, probably because we'd go mad if we didn't
Scene of three Afghans falling from an American plane Locals say the men were hiding in the tires or fuses of the plane, which fell on the roofs of houses near Hamed Karzai International Airport as it took off. #ZAWIANEWS #Kabul #SanctionOnPakistan #Afghanistan #Talibans
It's like a nightmarish mix of 9/11, Saigon and a climate change disaster movie.
These are searing images, and I just don't see how Biden can polish them away now. They cannot be unseen. But, who knows. Humans move on pretty quickly, probably because we'd go mad if we didn't
Not wheel-well stowaways again. Word needs to get around that these people *always* end up dead.
If they survive the takeoff and hide in the right place as the spinning wheels retract, they will spend the remainder of the flight their life in an unpressured and unheated compartment, will pass out from hypoxia and hypothermia, and will have their frozen body fall out as the gear comes back down at the other end.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
I think that a lesson from all this is that if you really want to intervene somewhere you need to do it in support of someone with substantial local popularity, even if lots of other people hate him for good reasons (Assad may be an example). When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind a regime (a nastily authoritarian communist one, but nonetheless coherent) with huge numbers of active supporters in the cities who then held out for 18 months despite active CIA support for their opponents.
Both here and in South Vietnam, the West has settled for a top-down solution, empowering whatever corrupt guys could be bought. That's not to say that there weren't and aren't plenty of Afghans who genuinely like western liberal democracy and would have been pleased to support it - I've met some, and for example the Education Minister being interviewed sounds very genuine. But rather than promote those, we seem to have routinely gone for the power-brokers, and they are only (perfectly understandably) interested so long as the money keeps flowing to them and they aren't at physical risk. Much the same seems to be happening in Iraq and Libya, with all the big powers supporting whichever thug seems pliable, at the expense of those who actually want a working government with popular backing.
As someone who voted for both Afghan and Iraqi interventions, I accept a share of blame for this. I've come to feel that intervention is only justifed if you can see that a genuinely popular local government with views that we like is being undermined. Otherwise, we should leave it to the local populations to sort out, the only condition being that they don't export hatred to us.
Interesting Ben Wallace is on damage limitation today but the Tory spin will be this is the West's fault and little GB couldn't have prevented it. Absolute b*llocks of course.
I am ashamed of western governments today, especially America, but Britain too
I wonder at what point western troops could have left to anything other than criticism.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place: after 20 years of western protection there are not enough people who want and are prepared to fight for a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.
My dad on the video call this morning made a fairly good point. The US and UK should offer no strings attached asylum to all female Afghan army members and be flown out of the country with our people. Their lives are in real danger today and we've put them in that position by filling their heads with the nonsense that Afghanistan could be a secular democratic nation.
There was a woman Afghan MP on R4 this morning saying she had chosen to stay, as she felt it wrong to abandon the people she represented.
She was impressively calm and reasoned about her civic duty. But also intensely sad as she had lost many members of her family to the civil war there.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
I think that a lesson from all this is that if you really want to intervene somewhere you need to do it in support of someone with substantial local popularity, even if lots of other people hate him for good reasons (Assad may be an example). When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind a regime (a nastily authoritarian communist one, but nonetheless coherent) with huge numbers of active supporters in the cities who then held out for 18 months despite active CIA support for their opponents.
Both here and in South Vietnam, the West has settled for a top-down solution, empowering whatever corrupt guys could be bought. That's not to say that there weren't and aren't plenty of Afghans who genuinely like western liberal democracy and would have been pleased to support it - I've met some, and for example the Education Minister being interviewed sounds very genuine. But rather than promote those, we seem to have routinely gone for the power-brokers, and they are only (perfectly understandably) interested so long as the money keeps flowing to them and they aren't at physical risk. Much the same seems to be happening in Iraq and Libya, with all the big powers supporting whichever thug seems pliable, at the expense of those who actually want a working government with popular backing.
As someone who voted for both Afghan and Iraqi interventions, I accept a share of blame for this. I've come to feel that intervention is only justifed if you can see that a genuinely popular local government with views that we like is being undermined. Otherwise, we should leave it to the local populations to sort out, the only condition being that they don't export hatred to us.
Agree. Incidentally Boris shows signs of being very unwilling to risk our troops in a worthless cause. For all the liberal hand wringing, this has huge support in working class communities, where most of the forces come from.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
I think that a lesson from all this is that if you really want to intervene somewhere you need to do it in support of someone with substantial local popularity, even if lots of other people hate him for good reasons (Assad may be an example). When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind a regime (a nastily authoritarian communist one, but nonetheless coherent) with huge numbers of active supporters in the cities who then held out for 18 months despite active CIA support for their opponents.
Both here and in South Vietnam, the West has settled for a top-down solution, empowering whatever corrupt guys could be bought. That's not to say that there weren't and aren't plenty of Afghans who genuinely like western liberal democracy and would have been pleased to support it - I've met some, and for example the Education Minister being interviewed sounds very genuine. But rather than promote those, we seem to have routinely gone for the power-brokers, and they are only (perfectly understandably) interested so long as the money keeps flowing to them and they aren't at physical risk. Much the same seems to be happening in Iraq and Libya, with all the big powers supporting whichever thug seems pliable, at the expense of those who actually want a working government with popular backing.
As someone who voted for both Afghan and Iraqi interventions, I accept a share of blame for this. I've come to feel that intervention is only justifed if you can see that a genuinely popular local government with views that we like is being undermined. Otherwise, we should leave it to the local populations to sort out, the only condition being that they don't export hatred to us.
Great post, I think the other part of this is raising living standards and a decent wage. Give people a real stake in continuing the new status quo.
Funnelling bulk of the cash to local leaders only increases the power they have over those around them, and incentives those leaders to take more cash from the next group looking to take control, whether it be us, communists or jihadis.
I am ashamed of western governments today, especially America, but Britain too
Nonsense. This is 100% on Biden and 0% on Johnson or Trump. Indeed the UK should be praised globally for both its role in this catastrofuck and in letting the Foreign Secretary go on holiday to Margate as planned.
Scene of three Afghans falling from an American plane Locals say the men were hiding in the tires or fuses of the plane, which fell on the roofs of houses near Hamed Karzai International Airport as it took off. #ZAWIANEWS #Kabul #SanctionOnPakistan #Afghanistan #Talibans
It's like a nightmarish mix of 9/11, Saigon and a climate change disaster movie.
These are searing images, and I just don't see how Biden can polish them away now. They cannot be unseen. But, who knows. Humans move on pretty quickly, probably because we'd go mad if we didn't
Not wheel-well stowaways again. Word needs to get around that these people *always* end up dead.
Not always. That Cuban guy made it to Canada. There's probably been others...
Interesting Ben Wallace is on damage limitation today but the Tory spin will be this is the West's fault and little GB couldn't have prevented it. Absolute b*llocks of course.
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
It is called the real world
You are talking dangerous tripe and making an utter fool of yourself
So glad you are not a defence minister BigG.
Not only would Bin Laden still be alive and never mind the Taliban retaking Afghanistan they would never have lost it in the first place but also you would guarantee Taiwan would fall to Beijing without a second glance.
If you are the Taiwanese government you obviously would want nuclear weapons capability to be part of your defence capabilities, you are very naive sometimes
Lolololol an absurd piece of self-aggrandising buffoonery. Unless you personally are prepared to strap on body armour and an SA80 to start shooting the Taliban, how about you crawl away and find which ditch you left your dignity in?
I am ashamed of western governments today, especially America, but Britain too
I wonder at what point western troops could have left to anything other than criticism.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place: after 20 years of western protection there are not enough people who want and are prepared to fight for a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.
This is not entirely the fault of USA or the UK.
Good morning everybody. Bit later than usual, and the weather doesn't look as good as it might. Just hope it stay's OK at Nottingham.
On topic, Mr AK appears to make assumptions that I don't think are justified; that poor Afghanistan had 'a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.' It might have had the first of those three in Kabul and maybe another one or two cities, but that was about it.
Not Afghanistan, but I have come back to work this morning with an email from our logistics company with another price rise. They have now given their drivers a total of 25.5% pay rise since April, are still losing drivers, there are not enough drivers in the South West at any price.
At some point the companies will realise that pay rises aren't the solution to not enough drivers as the "winner" will end up with a wage bill +50% AND a shortage of drivers. The "market solution" proposed by Philip doesn't exist.
It absolutely exists, if truck driver wages go up to £80k per year there will be a queue of people who want to do it.
*sigh* It will take 18 - 24 months to train sufficient drivers. So say the Road Haulage Association who I imagine know more about this than we do. So you can pay £100k a year and still have a driver shortage.
Better pay and conditions will help recruit and retain drivers as a long term solution. It does not provide a short term solution as you are simply stealing drivers from one haulier to another. A huge cost increase without actually fixing the immediate driver shortage.
After my medical, my license was sent to Swansea in February to get the appropriate endorsements so I can proceed with my training. Nobody is answering phone email enquires have a 28 day target reply due to Covid. Just maybe you would think if we suffer such a shortage some kind of resources would be thrown at the situation?
Comments
But Trump in 2024 will be weaker than in 2020. He’ll be mentally less sharp. He’ll be worn down by investigations. He’ll be as old as Biden was in 2020, only less healthy and with more scandals.
His behavior around the last election will also not have endeared him to anyone who is not a hardcore Trump supporter.
He was a sore loser, and I don’t think that is a winning strategy.
EDIT: My references to Montesinos was that he created a genuinely populist counter-revolutionary movement. One that wiped out the revolution. The Peruvian civil war is an interesting study.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIJ_C9mUBI
They have a "Popemobile" from that visit.
Of course a Taiwan government with nukes fearful for its own survival could threaten to send a nuclear bomb on mainland China the second a Chinese soldier set foot on its soil
Today:
https://twitter.com/ahmermkhan/status/1427122053212098560?s=20
Also:
"Reuters is reporting witness claims that at least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital. One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the victims were killed by gunshots or in a stampede, Reuters said. U.S. troops, who are in charge of the airport, earlier fired in the air to scatter the crowd, a U.S. official said. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the deaths."
It's turning into a bloodbath. And it is all on Biden
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/16/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-evacuation-live-news-updates
Now, if wages were lagging inflation, you might have a point. But the reality is that wages are surging even more than consumer goods prices.
Surveys of American economic satisfaction will be at all time highs in the next six months.
A couple of US mil C130s on the move at KBL now too, it’s going to be a busy day.
A couple of airbursts in the Taiwan Strait would wipe out a Chinese invasion, without creating mass civilian casualties. Of course, the Chinese response.....
"At least three people have been killed by gunfire at #Kabul airport right now."
https://twitter.com/AnilKumarMoh/status/1427172732538478595?s=20
But a source told me Dominic Raab didn’t talk to UK ambassadors in 7 nearby countries. Nor did he talk to Pakistan’s foreign minister until the day Kabul fell
Put claims to Foreign Office. They didn’t deny
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/15/dominic-raab-accused-missing-action-holiday-kabul-fell-taliban/ https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1427027851702853641/photo/1
Had Trump won those 3 states he would have got 272 EC votes and been re elected
"I predict another major hit on the West, the likes of 9/11, because the terrorists will want to bookend our time in Afghanistan to show how futile the last two decades have been"
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1427172010145222660
A year or two ago there was a bad habit of brief power cuts around 8-10am. Just had one (luckily, and to my surprise, it seemed I saved at a good moment and didn't lost any work). Hope this isn't a recurrence of the pattern seen before.
Can’t help but feel the Republican Party will rue the day they didn’t exclude Trump from further office.
Time to get some comparatively balanced reporting from GBNews.
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
The grotesque chaos and bloodshed, I am afraid, is very much on him. Trump didn't order it to be done this way. Biden is in charge
"BREAKING NEWS - Locals near Kabul airport claim that three young men who were holding themselves tightly in the tires of an airplane fell on top of people's houses. One of the locals confirmed this and said that the fall of these people made a loud and terrifying noise."
https://twitter.com/AsvakaNews/status/1427172720446373892?s=20
I see that #WhereIsBiden is globally trending
GRAPHIC VIDEO:
https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1427166719831777280?s=20
(I am not a fan of the papacy.)
How could you suggest supporting people like that?
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/status/1427170410550923264?s=20
I do think whoever raised the point about advice had a good line, though. Was the execution of this so shambolic because Biden made a stupid decision and defied advice, or was the advice he given very poor and his decision, on that basis, more reasonable?
It doesn't affect the PR side of things but if US intelligence/military guidance is so shockingly bad, that's not great for the country.
Better pay and conditions will help recruit and retain drivers as a long term solution. It does not provide a short term solution as you are simply stealing drivers from one haulier to another. A huge cost increase without actually fixing the immediate driver shortage.
And he really is culpable, anyway, for the timing and manner of this withdrawal, when - by all accounts - plenty of advisors said Don't do it, or Don't do it like this
It is Biden who let them back in, yes Trump also shares some of the blame for this defeat for enabling the withdrawal process but not Bush. Bush was the one who removed the Taliban and looks like a genius compared to the incumbent and his predecessor today
I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Can it actually get any worse?
@Tobias_Ellwood: "Absolutely Dominic Raab should have been back at his desk, this is the biggest military challenge in a generation."
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1427175065062412295?s=20
There is no such thing as a free society without strong armed force willing and able to defend it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/
The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials.
The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official.
Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers....,/i>
It is called the real world
@Tobias_Ellwood: "Absolutely Dominic Raab should have been back at his desk, this is the biggest military challenge in a generation."
Live updates: https://trib.al/n0U5anH #KayBurley https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1427175065062412295/video/1
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan looks increasingly likely, with America visibly shrinking away, and China is so much more powerful than Taiwan, without American help the only way Taiwan could fend off a Chinese takeover is nukes.
As Ishmael says, it would be surprising if the Taiwanese are not already close to owning nukes anyway, the logic is so obvious. Apparently Japan is the same: they aren't technically a "nuclear" power, but they have all the ingredients and technology ready to go, so that nuclear bombs or missiles could be assembled in hours
If you take a slightly longer view since the end of WW2, for humilations you have Suez, Siagon, 9/11 and now potentially* Kabul.
Against which have been clear successes in the Cold War and numerous technological advances.
Pretty much even overall.
(*Too soon to tell - everything is magnified at close distance. I suspect it may come to be seen as major humiliation alongside the fall of Saigon but sometimes events that seem huge at the time achieve lesser significance as the years pass, e.g. Sputnik.)
• Form an international coalition to provide routes, funding + safe-haven for millions of refugees, with homes for them in Britain and across the West
• And dramatically increase UK aid and development spend for Afghans trapped in the country
https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1427175940539441154
BoZo and chums just voted to reduce Foreign Aid...
They both have plutonium. And very high end missile technology.
They publicly state they are non-nuclear states and allow comprehensive inspections to verify this, in accord with the international agreements they have signed.
In both cases they could have the bomb, probably before lunch.
Yes, the plutonium in both countries is "civil" - that is, *mostly* high burnup. Which means lots of Pu-240 in it. Which makes it less good for nukes.
Though, back in the 60s the US detonated a weapon with 20% 240 - which is a very high percentage. Among other things, the core would have been literally red hot from nuclear decay - which would mean and active cooling system.
In addition, if you simply keep the the plutonium around for years, the 240 decays into other elements and then can be separated chemically. Both countries have civilian plutonium that is multiple 240 half lives (7 years) old.
That moment UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace broke down on LBC when talking about #Afghanistan.
https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1427165359732404224?s=20
With the foreign embassies hiding in the green zone thinking their 'nation building' is a success.
That happened ages ago.
NEW: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in tears describing how some “won’t get back” from Afghanistan @LBC
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1427165840999391233/video/1
By BOAC Constellation to Trinidad, 1953. From May that year, airlines were allowed to offer a reduced fare for a reduced service, and Tourist Class (‘Coach’ in the US) was born. An off-season return ticket went down from £254 (£7,145 in 2019) to £173 13s (£4,866).
https://twitter.com/Birdseed501/status/1427177520332427266?s=20
Not only would Bin Laden still be alive and never mind the Taliban retaking Afghanistan they would never have lost it in the first place but also you would guarantee Taiwan would fall to Beijing without a second glance.
If you are the Taiwanese government you obviously would want nuclear weapons capability to be part of your defence capabilities, you are very naive sometimes
"We had to destroy Taiwan to make it part of China"
The funny thing is, I could see some of the Chinese government saying that.....
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/royal-navy-sailors-on-hms-queen-elizabeth-arrested-in-guam-on-suspicion-of-groping-woman-and-fighting-3346167
It takes four years to build a ship but 400 years to build a tradition, as ABC famously said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/16/afghan-asylum-seekers-will-allowed-flee-taliban-britain-without/
@bridgerollo
The family who hosted the illegal engagement party says they’ve been subject to intense cyber bullying. “We did wrong, but the hate coming out way is just so mean. So far we are all isolating & have received negative results.” They’ve asked for forgiveness
@abcmelbourne
There will be some people who are tempted into the market, who do have current licences, but who don't want to drive for current wages.
For example my boss has a current HGV ticket, because he moves his traction engine round on an old lowloader. He's not going to drive commercially at current wages, but if they got to £80k a year, I bet he'd start taking some shifts. Lots of farmers have HGV tickets, again, if prices rise enough they'll start making a few quid out of it.
These people won't be enough to solve the shortage, but will make a dent in it.
Another effect will be that companies will become more efficient in utilisation. The more it costs per mile to run a truck, the more it matters what you do with it. I work for an engineering contractors. We often get stuff delivered to our yard, to sit in its crate for a week or two before being collected and taken to the customers site. If haulage starts costing us lots, we will probably start getting stuff delivered directly, rather than trucking it up and down the country.
Same with back-loads. The more it costs to run a lorry, the more operators will attempt to maximise efficiency by taking backloads instead of running empty milage.
Some stuff either won't get moved, or will be transported by smaller vehicles (not requiring HGV licenses).
Its a mixed bag, some of it is good, some of it is bad, some of it doesn't matter much, but just assuming both demand and supply are completly inelastic is very flawed.
@AhmadKhan319338
Scene of three Afghans falling from an American plane
Locals say the men were hiding in the tires or fuses of the plane, which fell on the roofs of houses near Hamed Karzai International Airport as it took off.
#ZAWIANEWS #Kabul #SanctionOnPakistan #Afghanistan #Talibans
https://twitter.com/AhmadKhan319338/status/1427183525682352129?s=20
It's like a nightmarish mix of 9/11, Saigon and a climate change disaster movie.
These are searing images, and I just don't see how Biden can polish them away now. They cannot be unseen. But, who knows. Humans move on pretty quickly, probably because we'd go mad if we didn't
@Tobias_Ellwood
·
1m
AFGHANISTAN:
Chaotic exodus from Kabul airport.
Apaches used to clear the runway.
If this is not Saigon 2.0 I don’t know what is.
Is this how we thought we’d depart Afghanistan?
I repeat my call for a UK inquiry."
https://twitter.com/Tobias_Ellwood/status/1427184582030462976?s=20
If they survive the takeoff and hide in the right place as the spinning wheels retract, they will spend the remainder of the flight
their lifein an unpressured and unheated compartment, will pass out from hypoxia and hypothermia, and will have their frozen body fall out as the gear comes back down at the other end.It’s a really horrible way to go. Don’t do it.
If the Afghans weren't willing to fight to defend it then why should more British lives and money be wasted in so doing.
Both here and in South Vietnam, the West has settled for a top-down solution, empowering whatever corrupt guys could be bought. That's not to say that there weren't and aren't plenty of Afghans who genuinely like western liberal democracy and would have been pleased to support it - I've met some, and for example the Education Minister being interviewed sounds very genuine. But rather than promote those, we seem to have routinely gone for the power-brokers, and they are only (perfectly understandably) interested so long as the money keeps flowing to them and they aren't at physical risk. Much the same seems to be happening in Iraq and Libya, with all the big powers supporting whichever thug seems pliable, at the expense of those who actually want a working government with popular backing.
As someone who voted for both Afghan and Iraqi interventions, I accept a share of blame for this. I've come to feel that intervention is only justifed if you can see that a genuinely popular local government with views that we like is being undermined. Otherwise, we should leave it to the local populations to sort out, the only condition being that they don't export hatred to us.
The most irritating thing for us about short power cuts is the number of digital clocks we have to reset.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place: after 20 years of western protection there are not enough people who want and are prepared to fight for a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.
This is not entirely the fault of USA or the UK.
"cos I'm a soldier"
There you have it. At least one member of the Clown cabinet is competent and gets it. Expect him to get fired soon for showing the rest of them up.
Funnelling bulk of the cash to local leaders only increases the power they have over those around them, and incentives those leaders to take more cash from the next group looking to take control, whether it be us, communists or jihadis.
On topic, Mr AK appears to make assumptions that I don't think are justified; that poor Afghanistan had 'a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.'
It might have had the first of those three in Kabul and maybe another one or two cities, but that was about it.