it is sad how the women in afghanistan r literally having their freedoms, aspirations and hopes taken away overnight...😢😢😢

@MarkPaul Let's just remember what happened to one young female who tried to do that....

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@MarkPaul Nice white savior narrative.

@MarkPaul How are you doing today?

@MarkPaul with the Taliban in control, women become nothing but property and have absolutely zero rights.

@MarkPaul The United States spent ninety billion dollars training 300,000 Afghan military fighters and supplied them with the best weapons and equipment in the world. The very fact that they lost so quickly and with so little effort shows that no, they don't want to. Two decades of a fake government being held up entirely by foreign money has taken away any will to fight against whatever local guerrilla force wants to take control.

Was it worth two trillion dollars, a few thousand American lives, and massive collateral damage? I would day absolutely not.

@BlueMetalChick Well, Taliban has strict laws against corruption . Afghans can't be re- educated , its like turning all Arabs Jewish.

@BlueMetalChick Why would they want to fight and die for a US crusader kingdom run by a US college professor?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Well, that's my point. The Taliban sucks. They're repressive authoritarian religious zealots. But it isn't like we've given them a better option.

@BlueMetalChick Yeah. Groups like the Northern Alliance who ran the country before them and who the US backed during the invasion were even crazier. Kind of like the "good Al Qaeda" the US backed in Syria. A friend of mine fled to Canada from the Northern Alliance. He too was a university prof in Kabul but could not prove his credentials because apparently the NA blew up the university archives for being "unholy."

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I don't think you understand or appreciate the dynamics at play. Let me see if I can simplify it for you. Basically, the free world offered them an alternative. And, let's not fool ourselves. Many of them (especially women) saw the value of western world ideology and the benefits of a western world oriented lifestyle. That's not to say the western world didn't have its own USA led agenda and selfish interests. But, that doesn't take away from the gift of freedom they were granted. Now, they need to pay that gift forward by taking over the security of their own future... if they want it and if they can keep it.

@BlueMetalChick Well, maybe you feel you should have gotten more for your money, but the USA and its allies received quite a lot for their efforts for the past 20 years. Yeah, it would have been nice if that investment paid off forever, but that was probably never in the cards. The real problem is the people who think it's so easy to simply take over and change a culture.

@MarkPaul Really? Like what? What has the USA received that was worth two trillion dollars and several thousand lives? Tell me.

@BlueMetalChick 20 years free from Afghanistan terrorist training... the original and only approved mission.

@MarkPaul Again, nice historical rewrite. Always the imperialist PR guy.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Well, I'm just saying there was original success in literally saving them from their own cultural deficiencies. Now that they have had the taste of the modern world, it's literally back to the Middle Ages for them. So, yeah, that's unfortunate and a sad and sorry commentary.

@MarkPaul It is total propaganda bullshit is what it is. It is a fiction to try and justify the most pointless war in modern history.

And wow. Spoken like a white supremacist. Going to quote white man's burden next? or drag out the racist noble savage trope? You are no different than the Trump clowns.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I'm not attempting to justify war. I don't promote war or believe in war. But, I don't think a society that extols the virtues of the Middle Ages and attempts to force those "virtues" on the entire population is good for anyone. And, I suspect most Afghan women agree with me. In that respect I think we did a good thing.

@MarkPaul That is exactly what you are doing. And you have and do promote what you think are the "right" wars.

And nice racist cliches further proving my point.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow It kind of sounds like you are a Taliban apologist... when you are not extolling the virtues, as you see them (or recite them) of Putin.

@MarkPaul Are you OK? You never respond to my post.

@MarkPaul Twenty years free of Afghani terrorist training? How do you figure? The Taliban only increased their hold on the country over the twenty years of war. When we invaded, about 25% of the nation was under Taliban control. That increased slowly but surely to about 40% in mid 2020.

So, no, we didn't have twenty years free of terrorist training.

@BlueMetalChick What??? In 2001, the Taliban had near total control of Afghanistan. They lost all that control which is why they have been taking back control over the last few months and certainly with the last few weeks. Are you even glancing at the news? For professing solidarity with the people of Afghanistan you seem oblivious to what their lives have been like over the past 20 years.

I suppose one could argue the USA and allies never should have pulled out having stabilized a land mass of competing interests with no common ground amongst themselves. But, with support that was superficial at best as exemplified by your own admission of lack of knowledge on the topic, pulling out seems like the only political and practical solution.

@MarkPaul Hey, I'm only repeating what the intelligence community has reported, both at the time and now. The consensus was that the Taliban held about 25% of the country when we invaded.

@BlueMetalChick Don't even try. Mark Paul has been trying to audition for the US State Department's PR division for awhile. He lives in a pro imperial fantasy land and on this thread alone basically paraphrased White Man's Burden. Right now he is lementing the loss of what he sees as a colonial territory.

@BlueMetalChick Well, what happens when we repeat what we hear and recite what we are told? Do you really need me to teach you how to do research? Don't fall into lazy habits.