What is a CO (commanding officer)?
You're being too kind on the horror regime of Taliban in the 90's.
Whether they're different now than 20 year ago, remains to be seen. I think it's exceedingly naïve to think that.
At least a generation of young people (women!) got to see what life can be like outside a repressive islamist terror regime.
Otherwise I agree. The US and allies could stay there 20 more years and nothing would change.
It was a complete joke to see how negotiations were made with the Taliban in recent years.
Commanding officer, yes.
I don't mean to be kind to the Taliban and their past horrors, they are not a force for good, and are indeed an extremist and tyrannical organization. They're definitely different than they were 20 years ago, but when I say different, I do necessarily mean better. They are smart and are probably not going to want to do something to bring NATO or the UN on their ass like their last government suffered, at least not more than what would be expected. More likely though, that mostly just means that they'll be more secretive when doing grievous acts, and more diplomatically nice.
There's still a part of me that almost admires the relentless persistence and the sheer will of the Taliban, and your average Taliban fighter is probably some rural guy who experienced something terrible with the ANA or the US military and thus wanted to fight them out of a sense of purpose. The Taliban are extreme, but they are not quite as horrifyingly murderous and terrible as the Islamic State(less) for example. They are an evil organization, yes, but still made of human beings with a fairly backward cultural upbringing as opposed to monsters, though it's got monsters too. Overall, it's a black hour for human rights. From what I've heard, rural areas in Afghanistan are often pretty pro-Taliban, while the urban areas are much less so. I'd rather not have a Taliban government, but I'd rather the Afghan people form their own fight and will against the Taliban and build off of that, not the US wrapping their greedy hands around the situation, dictating, and holding the hand of Afghanistan.
I'm seeing a ridiculous number of articles from reputable news sources with, either implicit or otherwise, low-key praise of the Taliban and usually a bon mot at the end about how that'll teach America for trying to be a colonial power, etc. etc.
Because Afghans are literally risking death to get out of the country because the Taliban are purely benevolent overlords. Corrupt and apparently useless the government may have been, at least they weren't Islamist hell.
I ****ing hate where the world is. It's an absolute disgrace that NATO hasn't acted yet, and even worse that Biden stands by his decision for non-intervention. Ideally other allies would step up to do something, but I can't see my own government doing so.
I disagree. The government was not just corrupt with racketeering, but also child molesting, war crimes, rape, executions, torture, you name it. These were not isolated incidents either. Much of their actions, and even a fair amount of NATO's actions, make you question how much of a "good guy" this side really is. What is NATO supposed to do? Spend another 20 years there? Even if that happened, the Taliban would've still probably outdone the ANA. I very much agree with Biden's decision, this is not anyone's fight but Afghanistan's. NATO's presence just made things worse, they should've gotten out after the Taliban were toppled. The US keeps going into these countries and this keeps happening, over and over again.