This has to be satire. Please tell me it's satire, someone?
Afghanistan
- Thread starter Sherzad
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
That's the official position now, but the Chinese don't rule out using force either. Their vice foreign minister said in April, "National reunification of China is a historical process and the tide of history. It will not be stopped by anyone or any force. We will never let Taiwan go independent. We are firmly committed to safeguarding national sovereignty and security and promoting national reunification. We are prepared to do everything we can for peaceful reunification. That said, we don't pledge to give up other options. No option is excluded."
A minute ago, you were arguing the level of trade between the two made Taiwan too valuable to invade, so you kind of need to make your mind up on that. China's goals aren't economic, they are nationalist, and we all know how dangerous that kind of sentimentality can be. And Hong Kong and the Uyghurs prove that populations that don't fall into line, will be coerced by force if necessary.
That must be why china keeps invading Taiwanese airspace, talks about 'war' in the context of Taiwanese independence and is building new amphibious ships.
I'm not sure what you mean by China not being able to win a war against the US given the Taliban just did - they might well conclude there are a range of strategic options that would extract a sufficient price or deter US involvement short of a full war anyway, given the advantage China has of proximity. There's a lot of potential moves available to them in an escalating campaign in their own backyard, should they wish to take them, risky ones of course. But China might well conclude they are worth taking if they could push the US back into the Pacific.
That's why this is all so destabilising, it puts an increasingly isolated looking US under pressure to look stronger than they are and it gives confidence to Chinese opportunists that the US is weaker than they might be.
That was a long time ago, when America was far stronger than they are now, and Iraq wasn't a nuclear power.
Far stronger ? You're mistaken.
That was when people called america a hyper power, a true hegemon. Nobody says that any more, for a reason.
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The US still has a significant edge in projecting power, where it counts.
All of a sudden, the stranded 10,000 - 15,000 stranded Americans and Afghan aids are barely in the US news cycle. Last night's embarrassing interview on ABC Nightly News with President Biden made the morning news, but almost nothing all afternoon on CNN or MSNBC
It's astonishing how corporate media and politicians in the USA continue to get this situation backwards. It's as if they just don't care about how the world views the disaster that Afghanistan has become.
Update: The evening news cycle is back on topic with Afghanistan. David Gregory and others are on CNN making excuses for Biden. The host looks puzzled in disbelief
It's astonishing how corporate media and politicians in the USA continue to get this situation backwards. It's as if they just don't care about how the world views the disaster that Afghanistan has become.
Update: The evening news cycle is back on topic with Afghanistan. David Gregory and others are on CNN making excuses for Biden. The host looks puzzled in disbelief
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Afghanistan became a disaster because Americans got involved there where they had no business.
No matter how bad it looks now Biden made the right decision to pull out.
Thanks for that brilliant insight
That's why I continue to stick around here at the Caf
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You started well then step by step disintegrated into some BJP troll script.
Well it might seem like that because it is a fancy way to put down opinions these days.
Not allowing infrastructure development from India in Afghanistan benefits whom exactly? Don't think any major European or American company will be interested certainly don't think Pakistan can do that in its present financial state. It leaves only China and with vast majority of Rare earth metal (roughly 17% of Afghan minerals), China has big incentive to go in Afghanistan. China has never given any development aid to any country so don't think will start with Afghanistan. Although debt trap might not work with Afghanistan as it doesn't have any organized government that it can bully like we are seeing with few countries. Didn't include US infrastructure effort as it was more of byproduct of them invading the country. India had zero military presence in the invasion.
Pakistan never liked the development project that were carried by India in Afghanistan which it has never shied away from showing on every occasion. Now we can have different opinion on this but it does play to Pakistan advantage to not have prosperous Afghanistan with civilian government. Taliban is an alternative that they are ready to take a chance on. But in long term don't think even that would work.
As far as India funding terrorism through Afghanistan is concerned, evidence is hardly convincing. FATF has kept Pakistan in grey list and only due to China and Turkey, it survived going to black list. If the evidence of terrorism is so convincing then surely Pakistan can use its China influence to get India into that list or at least start a conversation about it? After all it uses China to keep Masood Azhar off the UN designated terrorist list.
This was off topic but India's role is quite overstated than what it actually was. Mostly development project that was carried by India is now just lost investment and our role will be limited till a civilian government is restored if that ever happens. CIA and ISI are far more experienced in these games and don't think India's intelligence network is on the same level for this.
Anyway I think I should avoid Current Event forum as anything India narrative is not appreciated and is met with responses like "troll script". Good day to you!
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Well, if anything Biden did manage to fulfill one campaign promise by uniting the country... just not the way he intended or wanted to.
I’ll take “why are China forming close ties with the Taliban” for $500 please Alex.
I wonder what the reaction would have been if Biden had stopped extracting US troops along the lines Trump initiated before this shiteshow? I bet a lot of those criticizing him now would have still turned on him for that too.
Absolutely horrific situation and outcome to an occupation that should simply never have seen the light of day.
Absolutely horrific situation and outcome to an occupation that should simply never have seen the light of day.
They give him an easy ride because they want they want create positive narrative for the dems. The US media is incredibly partisan.
Horrible and with no restrictors on the windows amongst other things the place has been called a death trap for years
For me, I criticized the 20 years war. This has nothing to do with Biden, even Trump (can't imagine I'm kinda defending him). They're just dealt with this shit card from the start.
There's not much Biden can do. Could have done better? I doubt. Unless they open their borders to several tens of millions Afghanistan refugee then this aftermath we're seeing is just a matter of time. Baring that, people would get left behind, 1000-2000 US troops on the ground won't mean zilch, sure they secured Kabul at least but the mountain range and surrounding areas would eventually fall to Taliban, and they'll eventually faced with the same decision of having to withdraw.
The US could have kept a deterrent force like they had in South Korea for more than half a century. The question though is whether there is any long term meaningfull objective though. The US presence will always feed the narrative of the imperialist west and invaders on the other hand there is isn't really any good reason why Afghanistan couldn't become a refuge for Al-Quada or other islamists terrorist groups again.
Yes, but its technological advangage is narrowing vs its peers. America vs Iraq over Kuwait was an extraordinary demonstration of the superiority of US diplomacy, technology and ability to manoeuvre. Iraq had no way to make the US pay a price. China, in China’s backyard, would.
Full Islamic State statement translated here - http://www.aymennjawad.org/2021/08/islamic-state-editorial-on-taliban-victory-in
This situation is different than the normal brand of CNN and MSNBC. While they usually have the backs of Dems, they're not giving Biden much wiggle room. The only two pundits that have tried to go easy on the President has been David Gregory and NY Times pundit Maggie Haberman. Although the CNN anchors are being less than forgiving Biden for his contradicting statements.
To make matters worse, Republicans are already pushing for Benghazi style hearings. This ugly situation is about to go completely crazy as we approach a Iranian Hostage Crisis scenario.
For those more familiar with the local way of thinking, let's imagine there was a national referendum in Afghanistan about keeping the american/allied presence there or not, what would win?
I agree the gap is slowly reducing. China is nowhere near as powerful as the USSR was back then though, which would be the correct analogy.
China trades with virtually every country in the world, they also have a lot of influence on many countries and they have a lot of soft power. They may not be as powerful(USSR) in terms of military might but they are well equipped to become the biggest superpower.
I'm not gonna bother with this but nice to know you follow FATF according to which Saudi Arabia has no links to terrorism.
It's BJP trollerly if you think India is somehow the one unique power in nation with no ties to finding militant factions.
Agree
Especially with how the USA are so busy destroying each other from within the highest levels of power
Plus two things china has going for itself is a rising middle class, which generally means the average Chinese is getting more influential and aware. That sort of thing helps with opinion forming. The other thing is technology and infiltration into American tech scene.
A lot of the tech might be stolen but it doesn't stop it from being good .
From what I know, the eastern and Pakistani side of Afghanistan a majority would say no to Americans presence.
These are people living in Afghanistan I'm sure foreign afghans have different opinions
I dont think they will exert more soft power than the US. Not everything is a quid pro quo type of transaction. America's power is largely cultural with music, films etc. Don't think China has any way of challenging that, except maybe locally in Asia. I would also agree with the others that if the US society continues to eat itself from within, that will inevitably diminish though.
So what are the chances of a swift decent into civil war now? Only recently been learning about the Northern Alliance and their history... Seems like there is zero chance they will ever bow to the Taliban, especially under their current leadership, Saleh appears to be no fool and with the son of Ahmed Shah Massoud. Seems equally unlikely the Taliban will attempt to take back their territories.
Could they come to an agreement to just mutually co-exist in peace?
Or if attrocities begin to be carried out in Kabul and the NA's proximity to it... This briefly modernised city full of people not willing to give up their freedoms. The pressure to help and potentially liberate the city may become too great to ignore?
This may be a reason the Taliban cannot relax and let down their guard, they are on a war footing even with foreign forces completely gone. Against an enemy with the will to fight, for a change.
Could they come to an agreement to just mutually co-exist in peace?
Or if attrocities begin to be carried out in Kabul and the NA's proximity to it... This briefly modernised city full of people not willing to give up their freedoms. The pressure to help and potentially liberate the city may become too great to ignore?
This may be a reason the Taliban cannot relax and let down their guard, they are on a war footing even with foreign forces completely gone. Against an enemy with the will to fight, for a change.
I think the US is in the process of slowly losing its ability to project power around South China Sea, which is what will matter should China decide to push on Taiwan.
Why do you think that? Their navy is not losing capability.
The situation with Korea is not even comparable. The US can't be in Korea if a lot of Koreans don't want them there.
Majority of Afghanis don't want them there and neither do they want The Taliban either. But the Taliban are Afganis while the Americans are not obviously
Majority of Afghanis don't want them there and neither do they want The Taliban either. But the Taliban are Afganis while the Americans are not obviously
One could word that differently and come up with an equivalency to how Trumplicans wish they could do freely.
Yes and no because whilst the USA has clearly the worlds leading navy and nobody else is even close to them they have got the more asymmetric issues of Russia and China both having developed missiles wit the express purpose of being carrier killers the DF26 will have a range of 5000KM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ship_ballistic_missile
Basically if you want to put an aircraft carrier close enough to China to use its planes there is a very realistic chance said plane isnt going to have a carrier to land on and that type of asymmetric threat along with the russian hypersonic anti carrier missiles pose potential issues not encountered before with hard power projection for the US navy
Could the USA try and blockade china keeping sufficient distance - would be difficult but again what China would really need is oil imports in the event of a war - and access to other markets ... they will have pipelines from Russia, and the huge reserves being opened up in the caspin - most probably they will have pipelines through afgan from iran soon enough as well - plus the belt and road programme will be giving them access (albeit convoluted) if needed via land
So will the US Navy pose less of a threat to China moving forwards - probably yes and it has little to do with China building some aircraft carriers and subs of its own and more to do with technological and infrastructure developments
simple maths is it costs around $3m and takes a month to build a "carrier killer missile"... It takes about $13 billion and 6 years to build a carrier...
Not gonna lie a lot of the scenes of watching them in the presidential palace looked like the insurrection if it was successful
Because Chinese defences are getting stronger which means the price the US would have to pay (political, financial, military, prestige) to support its ally is increasing. It’s not that the US couldnt sail to the Chinese coast, its the number of assets they might lose doing so, and what their options might be after that. Of course the US has other land based assets in the area, and allies too, but that just makes the whole thing even more dangerous.
But before all that I think you would see China trying to test America’s resolve in lots of ways first, all sorts of carrot and stick diplomacy to weaken US influence in the area (which the US is currently doing all by itself), weaken US resolve at home, all sorts of other signals that aren’t really there yet. But things can change.
There was a lot written on the China- US Thucydides Trap a while ago, it’s worrying read and I don’t see anything that’s changed since it was written 7 years ago, other than China appears even more assertive and the US appears even more disorganised.
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Nobody will be placing carriers within range of Chinese land based anti ship missiles.