Afghan President flees country-Islamic Republic surrenders. Taliban takes country. - Page 21 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15190446
@QatzelOk ;

I did leave out the religious analysis (more marketing, really). And it is true, except for the Islam-specific passages. The contant background advertisements for JihadTM make the letter look like it was written by the West's own propagandists. And perhaps he is (was) one of them.


Osama bin Laden was a believer in Islam, it was important to him, as it is intended to be for the reader. That such an appeal was missed by you and maybe even most who've read it is besides the point to persons like him. He felt he did his duty to warn of an attack, and appeal for a conversion to Islam first as his favorite experts suggested.

It is a logical analysis of American atrocities committed against the rest of the world. These atrocities have created the critics, and they are probably a majority of the world's people - and for good reason. The rest of the world doesn't experience Death-by-American-arms as a tweet that they can argue with. They experience as the destruction of their quality of life on this earth.


So that's an interesting point; I'll even make an opinion poll about it.
#15190651
I was right, the loliban are forming a regular army with trained remnants of former government puppet forces, with them in the position of a revolutionary guard, eg the iranian system.

“Our dear country should have a regular and strong army to easily defend and protect our country,” he said.

Talking to TOLOnews, Fasihuddin said the soldiers and officers of the former government will also be recruited for the new army.

He said the Taliban will stand against any internal or external security threats.

“Those who have received training and are professional should be used in our new army. We hope this army should be formed in the near future,” he added.

The Taliban has repeatedly said that former government army personnel will be called back to their duties. In a recent move, the Taliban said they will call back the former government police to maintain Kabul security along with Taliban forces.

https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-174664
#15191073
colliric wrote:https://youtu.be/uCySfFeVN_g

Literally whitewashed. They didn't just paint over him, they whitewashed him, delibrately. Painted the white Taliban flag directly over his image to erase him.

They probably didn't even know who the fuck he was, lol. America should stop exporting woke SJW ideology, everyone else laughs at you.

A few courageous individuals including myself stood up to the 9/11 hysteria. A somewhat larger group stood up to the George Floyd hysteria. Both phenomena were all part of one giant long enduring movement:

American Identities Matter

Even on this forum people accused me of being some kind of racist for refusing to bow to the American narcissism of Black Lives matter. The terrible problems that Afghans have, the terrible suffering that Afghans have been through for decade after decade, after decade, but these Western Liberal narcissists demand that they concern themselves with the policing policies of a city in a far away country. I haven't studied George Floyd, he's an irrelevant individual, but I can well imagine that I have had many advantages in life that perhaps he didn't have. I may have been very lucky to have my on family background rather than Floyd's, but this doesn't blind me to the wider picture. Afghans are clinging on to the undercarriage of planes, in order to get the opportunities and freedoms of George Floyd country.

I heartily commend the Taliban for this action. At least in this small regard by destroying the monument, they are restoring some dignity to their country. Of course I would like to go further in restoring dignity to Afghanistan and restore the indigenous south / central Asian religions of Buddhism and its predecessors and remove the alien Arab imperialist , oppressor religion of Islam.
#15191075
Of course I would like to go further in restoring dignity to Afghanistan and restore the indigenous south / central Asian religions of Buddhism and its predecessors and remove the alien Arab imperialist , oppressor religion of Islam.

Why stop there? Why not restore animism? After all, if one is going to be a reactionary, this raises the question: how far back is enough? The Taliban are reactionaries, but they are Muslim reactionaries: the 7th century AD is far enough back for them, thank you very much. You want to push Afghanistan even further back, to 305 BC. Others might reject the newfangled religion of Buddhism, and want to return to Afghanistan's true cultural and religious roots, in shamanism and animism. After all, why not? Let's just forget the past couple of thousand years ever happened, eh?
#15191525
colliric wrote:https://youtu.be/1-o6L7UF5-I

Mark Milley: Takes away Trump's Nuclear code access because concerned "he'll kill innocent people"....

With no evidence of wrongdoing, drone strikes an innocent afghan family anyway.....

Classic move!


Just finished watching 24: Live Another Day (2014) on a DVD set from the library. The plot, in part, focused on drone strikes that kill innocent civilians. In the bonus materials, the show’s producers argued that Jack Bauer would be against drone strikes, preferring to gather intelligence and conduct strikes “on the ground.”

But that is probably a cinematic bias: You can’t have an action hero if all the action is done by a machine. For a while, the whole idea of the heroic fighter diminished after World War I, when the populace realized there was nothing glorious about battle when you never saw your enemy and you were likely to die an anonymous death by machine gun fire, artillery or poison gas.
#15191734
Drlee wrote:News flash.

In all of human history there has never been anything glorious about war. It is and has always been a bloody, dehumanizing, disgusting mess.

I disagree. It seems plain to me that it was war that made us human. It was warfare that took us from Australopithecines to modern homo sapiens. Being a slightly better flint napper, a slightly better hunter, a slightly better forager, a slightly better herbalist, a slightly better mid-wife. These things just don't cut it. they just didn't justify the enormous costs and resource drain of the modern human brain. Why do you think other animals have remained so thick for the last 500 million years? Yet in a few million years we have gone from under sized gorillas to Alder Lake. That took us from animals to The Animals and Sky Pilot.

Hominoids mastered their environment to the point where the main threat to survival and population expansion was other hominoids. It was only warfare between small bands and tribes, with the associated rape and female kidnapping, that could provide the necessaries differentials in reproduction rates to fuel the evolution of the human brain and tool manipulating nervous system. The Music, the Art, the Story telling, the Literature, the conversation, the Architecture, the medicine, the religion, the philosophy and the Spirituality are all waste by products of war.

In the modern world being in a mid level rock band may get you more lays than a Navy Seal. Sure in warfare there may be more losers than winners, but there's still been plenty of glory to round to the surviving winners. With the rise of civilisation and complex societies a six thousand years ago there has immense glory and richs for the few that came out on top.
#15191751
Drlee wrote:News flash.

In all of human history there has never been anything glorious about war. It is and has always been a bloody, dehumanizing, disgusting mess.


“By this time we were all in the spirit of the thing and greatly excited by the charge, the men cheering and running forward between shots, while the delighted faces of the foremost officers, like Captain C. J. Stevens, of the Ninth, as they ran at the head of their troops, will always stay in my mind.” — Theodore Roosevelt, recounting the Battles for Kettle and San Juan Hills
#15191779
Rich wrote:I disagree. It seems plain to me that it was war that made us human. It was warfare that took us from Australopithecines to modern homo sapiens. Being a slightly better flint napper, a slightly better hunter, a slightly better forager, a slightly better herbalist, a slightly better mid-wife. These things just don't cut it. they just didn't justify the enormous costs and resource drain of the modern human brain. Why do you think other animals have remained so thick for the last 500 million years? Yet in a few million years we have gone from under sized gorillas to Alder Lake. That took us from animals to The Animals and Sky Pilot.

Hominoids mastered their environment to the point where the main threat to survival and population expansion was other hominoids. It was only warfare between small bands and tribes, with the associated rape and female kidnapping, that could provide the necessaries differentials in reproduction rates to fuel the evolution of the human brain and tool manipulating nervous system. The Music, the Art, the Story telling, the Literature, the conversation, the Architecture, the medicine, the religion, the philosophy and the Spirituality are all waste by products of war.

In the modern world being in a mid level rock band may get you more lays than a Navy Seal. Sure in warfare there may be more losers than winners, but there's still been plenty of glory to round to the surviving winners. With the rise of civilisation and complex societies a six thousand years ago there has immense glory and richs for the few that came out on top.

Current scientific thinking seems to agree with you, @Rich: Link. Of course, to someone who believes in a political ideology based on hate and conflict - I am referring of course to myself and to socialism - this would come as no surprise. :)
#15191821
Potemkin wrote:Why stop there? Why not restore animism? After all, if one is going to be a reactionary, this raises the question: how far back is enough? The Taliban are reactionaries, but they are Muslim reactionaries: the 7th century AD is far enough back for them, thank you very much. You want to push Afghanistan even further back, to 305 BC. Others might reject the newfangled religion of Buddhism, and want to return to Afghanistan's true cultural and religious roots, in shamanism and animism. After all, why not? Let's just forget the past couple of thousand years ever happened, eh?

;) I suspect you are being somewhat tongue in cheek here, but to answer it seriously. When people in Britain readopt Druidism for example they don't generally adopt the values, attitudes, morals and social mores of pre Roman Britain. The same goes for other Pagan religions. We really don't need to worry about an Aztec religious revival. I very much doubt they'll be much human sacrifice.

Islam on the other hand is a religion of the law. Hence it is reactionary or it is nothing. It has failed to produce anything comparable to reformed Judaism. Judaism was also a full blooded religion of the law and despite the high levels of education and modernity amongst both Israeli Jews and the diaspora highly reactionary Orthodox Judaism has proved remarkably durable.

Even Christianity which is part law and part anti law, I suspect will prove much less flexible than some people imagine. I could be wrong but I think you will find that Christianity that accepts Gay marriage is a dead man walking. Some Conservative Christians may think they are on to a winner by opposing abortion, but the whole purpose of restricting abortion is because they hate women having sexual freedom, much as they may pretend otherwise. Its really not viable to constrain heterosexuals while telling Gays and Lesbians you can go off and just do what you like.
#15191824
Rich wrote: ;) I suspect you are being somewhat tongue in cheek here, but to answer it seriously. When people in Britain readopt Druidism for example they don't generally adopt the values, attitudes, morals and social mores of pre Roman Britain. The same goes for other Pagan religions. We really don't need to worry about an Aztec religious revival. I very much doubt they'll be much human sacrifice.

Islam on the other hand is a religion of the law. Hence it is reactionary or it is nothing. It has failed to produce anything comparable to reformed Judaism. Judaism was also a full blooded religion of the law and despite the high levels of education and modernity amongst both Israeli Jews and the diaspora highly reactionary Orthodox Judaism has proved remarkably durable.

Even Christianity which is part law and part anti law, I suspect will prove much less flexible than some people imagine. I could be wrong but I think you will find that Christianity that accepts Gay marriage is a dead man walking. Some Conservative Christians may think they are on to a winner by opposing abortion, but the whole purpose of restricting abortion is because they hate women having sexual freedom, much as they may pretend otherwise. Its really not viable to constrain heterosexuals while telling Gays and Lesbians you can go off and just do what you like.

You make some good points, but my point remains: you have given no reason I can see why reactionary Buddhism is a more preferable outcome for Afghanistan than reactionary Islam. For even the most reactionary Afghans, the 7th century AD is far enough back in time for their taste. I suspect your hatred of the 'Religions of the Book' is blinding you to the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.
#15191834
Rich wrote:...it was war that made us human. ...


Image

While it was perfectly natural for competing small bands of humans to clash over hunting, fishing, and foraging areas, the advent of "mass killing" of other humans by mechanical means... is a form of cannibalism mixed with social darwinism. And social darwinism is a fake science, so you're left with promoting cannibalism and extinction-causing environmental destruction.

I realize that "our leaders" use wars to thin us out and scare us back into submission to crap governance. But these wars cause so much physical damage to our environments, that I wish our oligarchs would find another way to kill and terrorize their sheep. (maybe they already have)
#15192696
I believe , based upon what I have read from this article , by the daughter of Mohammad Najibullah , that the problems facing Afghanistan go back before the U.S. military intervention .
In 1992, my father appealed to the US to help Afghanistan become a bulwark against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. He said: “If fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many more years. Afghanistan will turn into a centre of world smuggling for narcotic drugs. Afghanistan will be turned into a centre for terrorism.” His warnings were ignored. With the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in February 1989, virtually all western nations abandoned their embassies and ostracised my father’s regime. Calling him a communist puppet, a murderer, a traitor, he found himself isolated, fighting a very lonely war. And then, a decade later, his premonitions came true. Triggered by the 9/11 attacks, the US invaded my country to fight Islamic terrorism and began what would be its longest war. I wonder, had the world listened to him, would it all have turned out differently? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/27/father-killed-taliban-us-ignored-pleas-daughter-afghan-president
If only the National Reconciliation Policy had been successful . https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/13/a-viable-and-perhaps-the-only-path-to-lasting-peace-in-afghanistan/
#15192968
Deutschmania wrote:I believe , based upon what I have read from this article , by the daughter of Mohammad Najibullah , that the problems facing Afghanistan go back before the U.S. military intervention . If only the National Reconciliation Policy had been successful . https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/13/a-viable-and-perhaps-the-only-path-to-lasting-peace-in-afghanistan/


I am afraid my answer to her question is a "no", i.e. I do not think the Taliban could have been stopped.

The difference could be as small as 9/11 happening after US intervention, rather than before it. In that case the US would face even worse criticism than now.

But I do agree that intervention was something that worths trying 30 years ago. Maybe the West was a bit carried away by their (temporary / partial) victory against the dreadful Communists.
#15192969
QatzelOk wrote:I realize that "our leaders" use wars to thin us out and scare us back into submission to crap governance.


If they use war to scare us (i.e. we have to submit or there would be war), then we should say "let the war begin".

Crap governance can create a large portion of non-family-raising population. These people have nothing to lose.


QatzelOk wrote:But these wars cause so much physical damage to our environments, that I wish our oligarchs would find another way to kill and terrorize their sheep. (maybe they already have)


Dictatorships, which the East happily employs.

So apparently you advocate the Chinazi.
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