Afghanistan

To appreciate the full picture of what Afghans are facing again, it's well worthwhile reading the award-winning novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. The film version falls rather flat imo.

okocha wrote:To appreciate the full picture of what Afghans are facing again, it's well worthwhile reading the award-winning novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. The film version falls rather flat imo.

Hosseini's books paint a rose-tinted nostalgic view of childhood in Afghanistan although the innocence is shattered.
Nowadays Afghans face a stark choice between an antequated version of Shariah law or a sellout Government propped up by regional warlords - neither of which is an attractive proposition.
It's not that they were always a primitive tribal society though - it's just that when the West tried to modernise the country in the 50s and 60s we let them down badly.
Bitter Lake on Netflix is the definitive guide on how the country got to where it is now. A hard watch but filled with original footage that shows how the West inadvertently created the Afghan heroin trade and supported the spread of Islamic extremism throughout Asia by fawning to the Saudi Wahabists who funded the schools.

Kabul has fallen, President has fled to Uzbekistan, Biden under the cosh, protesters blaming Pakistan.

Americans now prioritising getting Americans out of Afghanistan at the expense of their Afghan allies. Some allies the Yanks turned out to be.

Looks like it's turned into another Vietnam looking at the videos of people hanging on to planes at Kabul airport.

Now the Government have back tracked on getting everyone out of the country who worked for the British military.

Norpig wrote:Looks like it's turned into another Vietnam looking at the videos of people hanging on to planes at Kabul airport.

Now the Government have back tracked on getting everyone out of the country who worked for the British military.

Effing shameful.
Complete disrespect for the Afghani people that helped us and the Yanks, the people - especially the women - who have had their hope for a more equal life shattered and the soldiers who were injured and died trying to make it happen.

Kite Runner author speaks out,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58245606

Taliban are talking a good game ATM trying to show the world that they are "reasonable" so the big question is whether or not it's a short term measure to take the heat off them whilst they embed their power base.
Whether it is or it isn't it's a good tactic and their best chance of holding the country.

They will revert back to type in a few months which is why so many Afghans are desperate to leave.

The government got heavily criticised over their handling of the issue from all sides in a packed HoC yesterday, and were on the receiving end again on the most interesting Question Time seen in months. 

Some really articulate and heartfelt speeches in both arenas made Johnson look the bumbling fool he is. It was interesting that very few tried to back him or Biden. Many spoke from experience.

No further words needed. Wow!

https://twitter.com/i/status/1428084653718753286

Calls for Dominic Raab's head - again.
This time for refusing to make a phone call that could have saved people's lives.
As John Stevens puts it:

Raab wasn't asked to be the ambassador processing visas at Kabul airport

Raab wasn't asked to be one of the 600 troops deployed to secure the airport

He was asked to make *one phone call* from his sun lounger to help the translators who served our troops - and he refused.


Asshole. But of course he won't resign and Blojo won't sack him.

Someone's been reading social media again...

A phone call from Raab would have achieved nothing - the Afghan officials would be more concerned about the safety of themselves and their family's first and foremost, let alone anyone else.

The BBC analysis explains the real reason why Raab is under the cosh -



Ministers, like many of us, go on holiday in August.

But this is both a further illustration of the extent to which the government had little idea how fast things were changing in Afghanistan and, perhaps, that some in the Foreign Office are less than impressed with Mr Raab's focus, or lack of it, on the job -- and so decided to tell the Daily Mail about it.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has suggested that phone call wouldn't have made any difference, given the Afghan government was crumbling.

But if the speed of its crumbling - and the takeover by the Taliban - was known within government last Friday, why was the foreign secretary still on holiday, as a huge plank of UK foreign policy was disintegrating?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58265160

As for Afghanistan and the Taliban in general, it is a completely different world to what we are familiar with, the whole middle east is, religion rules and the people are generally uneducated and poor, and where women are basically there to have children and look after the home.

That's how it is, they don't know any different and things have more or less been the same for century's.

That's how their religious leaders want it and that's why any 'leaders' of Muslim country's who are not religious leaders are usually brutal dictators who have taken power by army overthrows - they suppress the clerics in their country - Gaddafi, Saddam, Egypt starting with Nasser and the more recent overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

A few years back the west trumpeted the change resulting from the Arab Spring, where several country's overthrew their dictators and sought to rule themselves - great in principle but it was a disaster in practice and led directly to the army in Egypt taking over again, Libya becoming ungovernable and lawless to this day, the disaster that was Syria and the horror of IS in Syria and Iraq.

This world - which includes Afghanistan - is simply not the same as ours - they simply haven't evolved their society and norms in the way we have - they think WE have got it wrong and they want no part of it.

Is it really our right (or role) to tell them they are wrong?

Of course they are in the way they treat women, and gays, it is wrong that they've not developed and moved on from a book that was written about a thousand years ago when the world was then a different place.

Ideally we should just respect each others way of life and keep our differences apart and live in this world in peace together.

Can't ever see it happening though.

Another in the long line of Tory liars and hypocrites in the Cabinet: Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace.

(Incidentally, did you see that most Tories were not following the Party advice to continue to wear masks in the cramped conditions of the HoC yesterday? Flouting theor own rules and advice has become commonplace in Tory ranks, whereas the rest of us......)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58271943

Tory MPs and masks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58259604

okocha wrote:Tory MPs and masks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58259604

Ah - a BBC article.

Someone who clearly disapproves of social media seems to have noticed you posted a Twitter link earlier in the thread. At least I assume the snidey comment was aimed at you mate

Stick with the BBC and The Conservative Woman and you'll be OK.

wanderlust wrote:

okocha wrote:Tory MPs and masks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58259604

Ah - a BBC article.

Someone who clearly disapproves of social media seems to have noticed you posted a Twitter link earlier in the thread. At least I assume the snidey comment was aimed at you mate

Stick with the BBC and The Conservative Woman and you'll be OK.

No the comment was directly aimed at you.

And no I don't disapprove of social media - this forum IS a social media platform itself ffs!!!

What I have issues with is how gormless some folk are who believe what they read on social media to be gospel without even bothering to check it out that it is factual or relevant in the first place.

If the cap fits, then wear it.

My Twitter link was simply to show a video of the excellent member of the audience on Question Time last evening who spoke from the heart and from actual experience in Afghanistan. She brought the room (and even the ghastly James Cleverley, who tried, as usual, to talk over criticism) to a silence that electrified the rapt audience.

If only we had such honest, passionate eloquence and reason amongst our current government ranks.

Sluffy wrote:

No the comment was directly aimed at you.

And no I don't disapprove of social media - this forum IS a social media platform itself ffs!!!

What I have issues with is how gormless some folk are who believe what they read on social media to be gospel without even bothering to check it out that it is factual or relevant in the first place.

If the cap fits, then wear it.

All very interesting but totally illogical. After all  I'm not John Stevens and I didn't say it was "gospel".

Please don't start your nonsense again.

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

No the comment was directly aimed at you.

And no I don't disapprove of social media - this forum IS a social media platform itself ffs!!!

What I have issues with is how gormless some folk are who believe what they read on social media to be gospel without even bothering to check it out that it is factual or relevant in the first place.

If the cap fits, then wear it.

All very interesting but totally illogical. After all  I'm not John Stevens and I didn't say it was "gospel".

Please don't start your nonsense again.

You decided to test the waters by having a little pop at me and now you are playing your games again.

I thought you might want to move on from all that's gone on before, you must have noticed that the forum got on just fine without you and all the shit had stopped.

It isn't going to start up again - that's a promise.

They say that definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

I didn't have to unban you, that was my choice and mine alone and I did so hoping that at long last the penny might have finally dropped with you.

Unfortunately from your posts above it doesn't seem it has.

Carry on and we all know how this will end up.

Was I insane to unban you once again, it is looking for now that I might well have been but if you leave from here again, then there will be no coming back.

You've used up all your chances on Nuts.

I doubt if many will have done, but hope government ministers, and indeed everyone, watched the new production of J.B. Priestley's brilliant "An Inspector Calls" tonight on BBC 4, as a terrific and timely reminder of the need to care for others less fortunate than ourslves, and the consequences of not heeding the lessons.
Set in 1912 but just as relevant today.