By the time the west wakes up the damage will be done. It will be much harder to wind the clock back. Attacking Afghanistan will be much harder if, say, the Taliban ends up acquiring modern SAM from China,
Why would the Taliban want a SAM system and why would China provide it to them? Doing something like that would annoy the Americans and anger the Russians AND the Turks. And possibly Iran.
and even worse if they acquire IRBMs and reach an accord with Iran (currently doesn't seem unlikely). Your thinking is too small.
Again, what does Iran have to gain from selling the Taliban IRBMs? And how would that be different from the groups of people they already sell ballistic missiles to?
A decade ago nobody imagined ISIS. What's going to happen one decade in the future?
Who knows? Whose to say that the Taliban don't collapse or radically change themselves?
If you leave your enemies alone they get stronger, while the US is on a course to get weaker with its current internal turmoil and the economic fallout from both COVID and the consequences of your new foreign policy.
The US hasn't grown weaker, the US is growing
stronger. Especially relative to the rest of the world, which is going to grow much, much weaker. A bad day for the US is catastrophic for major powers and apocalyptic for middle and minor powers.
Let's address this.
First, our internal turmoil is the result of economic and institutional needs not being addressed for decades. That's why old party alliances are breaking and new ones are forming; to address the change in the world around us. This isn't the US collapsing under its own weight, this is US institutions adjusting to the growing popular will of the people.
Second, the US is the most capable of addressing COVID than any other nation. Within a year we took a highly contagious virus, produced not one--but three different highly effective vaccines and have made them widely accessible (FOR FREE) throughout the country. No other country on the planet has been able to do that. The current problem with vaccination rates come from portions of the population NOT WANTING THEM. And those areas as to be brutally honest, not as economically relevant at the moment. And there is likely to be a large surge of vaccinations as the situation gets worse in those areas and institutions are currently working at ways to encourage people to get those shots. In comparison, most of the modern world will probably not finish their vaccinations until sometime late this year or early next year. Third world nations probably won't get it until NEXT year.
You are protected by a world order you take for granted while advocating for tearing it down with your own hands. World orders change.
No, I'm sorry that isn't the case. YOU, your country, and most other countries were protected by a world order that far too many took for granted. Not necessarily you or Israel, but plenty of others. And they are the ones to blame for our current attitude. The EU introduced the euro as a direct competitor to the American dollar, which is what we used as part of our mechanism in running that global order. China is entirely reliant upon our military protection to sustain their economy. In fact, they owe their current economic prosperity to our good will. And they're using that to build up a military to CHALLENGE that same power. Powers like Germany have free-ridden our security powers for decades without putting much effort into their own defense or even paying us for it. And balked when Trump wanted them to.
We provided Saudi Arabia with free protection. And what did they do? Fund terrorists who eventually attacked us. And when we went in to get those terrorists, most of our so called allies, bitched and moaned about how we conducted our security policies. Instead of being grateful and aiding us in our fight in the Middle East, nations like France ended up fueling isolationist and populist flames, resulting in the so-called Freedom Fries. We did not get the support that many in this country thought we deserved from our NATO allies.
So we, the Americans, are backing away. Because we, the Americans, don't need this alliance anymore. It was created solely to contain the Russians. And the Russians are no longer a threat to us.
You've got it backwards, currently it's the Americans that are revealing themselves as fake to their allies, whether the Afghanis, the Kurds and others. And you can be certain that everyone is taking notes.
Notes of what? That nations make allies based on national interest? Do you think your nation would even TALK to Saudi Arabia if it wasn't for the fact that Iran was breathing down BOTH your necks? Or that you wouldn't sell them short the moment you didn't need them anymore? Nations throwing their "allies" to the wolves is as old as time itself.
Or do you think the Syrians appreciated the Russians feeding them to ISIS/Kurd rebels when it became convenient for them? Or when the UK used to play groups off each other in India? Or anyone whose ever been associated with the French? National interests dictate alliances, short and long term. The US's interests in the Middle East were short-term, not long-term. We aided the Kurds to destroy ISIS and fuck over the Syrian regime. We drove out the Taliban from power and aided a government that was friendly to us. Hell, even AFTER we pulled out our troops. Even now, after their troops and president fled like sniveling cowards. We pulled out of Iraq when we were done there too, which resulted in ISIS threatening the entire region. We're pulling away from South Korea at the moment and previously we'd pulled back from the Philippines under Obama.
We're drawing down in Europe because we don't need to keep the Russians in check.
I'll be satisfied when you clean up the messes YOU caused.
What mess?
We conquered the country 20 years ago. We gave them a mostly sovereign government that was mostly funded by us, as well as their armed forces. We built schools, roads, and other important infrastructure to educate the people and enhance their lives. We supplied them with weapons and training to ensure they could protect themselves. We LITERALLY paid their military to exist and were continuing to pay until they were defeated.
What did the Afghans do? They stole our money, lied to us about how many soldiers they really had, poorly trained most of the soldiers they had, and generally abandoned the fight in less time than it takes for most people to get a gun permit. And even AFTER their soldiers and leaders have fled, we are still there with our troops, evacuating people.
Afghanistan was a state with grown adults who knew what they'd gotten into. They knew what would happen if the Taliban ever returned. They've known for a year that we were leaving. They knew for months that we were 100% leaving, that's the end of the story. Did the Afghan government institute reforms within the past year to form a stronger military? Did they even try to do that in the last few months? No.
No, they pretty much just took the money we gave them and shot up on some heroin.
So this mess? This mess is Afghanistan's fault. They didn't want to fight. Why should we bleed and die to protect spoiled brats?
I don't care how you do it, that's up to you. I don't have a clean solution for you. If you want to leave then go ahead, but you shouldn't have left that mess behind.
So you don't have a solution to us leaving, but we should stay there to bleed and die for people who can't hold their country for two weeks? Why should we do that?
I categorically reject your argument. The fact that matters sucked before America doesn't change the fact that they messed it up even more. An entire generation that grew up in what can be viewed as a westernized country will now have to contend with being ruled by savages just a step above ISIS, and with a nice arsenal of abandoned American weapons to boot.
Yes, and their soy-filled-bitch-men tried harder to cling onto a US military jet plane than they did to fight the Taliban.
Then you wonder why people hate Americans. You caused this, and now you're literally gloating.
Try annoyed and fed up. We supported this shithole for 20 years and literally paid their government and military salaries. And these worthless, craven shitbags can't hold out for two weeks? And the whole world is turning at us while their young men scream and beg to be whisked away to a safe, modern first world nation, instead of staying to fight for their people?
No, fuck that. You want freedom? You want liberty? You fight for it.
Shit, the French helped us in our war against Britain. But they didn't do the fighting for us, hand us our freedoms, and then babysit us for 20 years.
How? Afghanistan has nothing to do with Israel.
Good. It has nothing to do with us either. We've washed our hands of Afghanistan.
Why should we? It's your mess to clean.
Let's get to what I think is the real issue. You're not worried about Afghanistan going under. You've seen us abandon the Kurds, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And you figure that Israel is probably the next one to get bumped off. Because the conservatives who care about Israel (ie, Ben Shapiro) have a smaller and smaller voice within the Republican Party, which is really the only party that cares about Israel in the first place.
And you can probably guess that Iran is going to start feeling rather bold once we leave the region completely.
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