I saw yesterday in the Dutch television the first part of this four part series: Afghanistan: "the wounded land"
As it was an English title I thought it would be an English language series, but after search with that title I came every time again to the Dutch connected comments. And lucky at the end I came with: Afghanistan: Das verwundete Land

https://www.filmvandaag.nl/serie/5884-afghanistan-das-verwundete-land
And here I saw that the documentary was made by :Germany, France, qa??, Czechia, Russia, Norway and the Netherlands.
And there was coincidentally a photo from the French documentary of Arte: Afghanistan: Pays meurtri par la guerre.



I searched then on the French title and unbelievable got then the four parts in English with French subtitles (persistance pays off)


 
If someone is interested, perhaps better to look first before it is annihilated... ...

I find it a welcome addition to my thread: Afghanistan 1979 World change?

https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1286-afghanistan-1979-world-change

And especially in the first part there were explainings that I heard for the first time and it is in a sense a perfect illustration of how it came that far in 1979.

First with the king the Westernized Kabul with all the luxus of a Western town, up to the famous May 1968, witnesses in the docu said that Kabul was more Western than most Western cities.

But Kabul was a Western bubble of some 500,000 in a sea of the rest of Afghanistan some 13,3 million inhabitants in that time, that was poor, backwards and old-fashioned Islamitic and sticking to the ages old tradition.
And at the end the Sixties it all started against the atheist Soviet backed government and ruled by some fifty Afghan rich families. And it never ended anymore until now.

And as illustrated in my thread: 
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1286-afghanistan-1979-world-change
the Americans got in my opinion stupidly mingled in it and, the same as the Soviet Union, got stuck in the Afghan wars and by this way were the cause of the later Jihadism and ISIS...

Paul.

OOPS I now see that the documentary is in French...it started all in English, because the persons were speaking English and hence the French subtitles, but later on one sees that it is indeed a French or German documentary from Arte...but there are a lot of English speaking persons in it... ...even Russian speaking ones..
As such it will be only for MM, LiR and me...but for those who understand French have a look...and perhaps one find also the German version on internet...

Excuses...

Paul.

Internationally, everyone seems to want their share of interest, opinion and perhaps intervention in the affairs of Afghanistan. My own opinion  varies from all possibly. The nature of the people, the nature of the land, the ingrained pull of sect differences, wily wheeling and dealing for hundreds of years suggests to me that much of the awful wounds are basically self inflicted. 

Well meaning intervention does not seem to resolve much because of naivety. I have met FO  'experts' of several nationalities  and became aware of that. A year's study of the history of the place, the tribes and clans - a 1000 years might be enough might just  give an inkling of how complex an issue pacifying this place is. Then throw in what the strategic, economic and political advantages offer and then  one might perhaps come up with a  policy that might bring peace for all in a troubled place. But don't bank on it. 
The real danger to the rest of the world of course lies in  the overspill of dangerous people  with assorted ideologies they want to implement. 

Afghanistan  is a wound in the side of the world and in the blame game, in my opinion, it must not be forgotten that it is deep, ancient wound and one ever resistant to invasive treatment. It must heal from within - but that will be a slow and painful business for these sturdy, interesting, intelligent and charmingly wily  rather secretive and above all. proud  mountain peoples.

Thank you for your comments, Priscilla.
Kind regards, Paul.

In my string of adjectives I left out - but have now included the most important of all...... proud.

I ought add that with 50 years of experience of many places and people in the subcontinent my real understanding of most people places and things, even, is pretty patchy. I only know how much I could never know. 
There was, however much silent delight and humour listening to foreigners yak on about it after a very short time there. The best Ambassodor I experienced - and only one - was a chap who sought out the less pushy on the fringes and in the shadows of gatherings and simply listened to what they were saying and asking a few carefully worded questions to elicit interesting reply.  he had an inkling where no  one else did.

In my string of adjectives I left out - but have now included the most important of all...... proud.

I ought add that with 50 years of experience of many places and people in the subcontinent my real understanding of most people places and things, even, is pretty patchy. I only know how much I could never know. 
There was, however much silent delight and humour listening to foreigners yak on about it after a very short time there. The best Ambassodor I experienced - and only one - was a chap who sought out the less pushy on the fringes and in the shadows of gatherings and simply listened to what they were saying and asking a few carefully worded questions to elicit interesting reply.  he had an inkling where no  one else did.

Priscilla wrote:

A year's study of the history of the place, the tribes and clans - a 1000 years might be enough might just  give an inkling of how complex an issue pacifying this place is.

The USSR's 10 year intervention and NATO's 20 year intervention do seem quite pathetic in the long view. Hellenic kings, for instance, were still ruling Bactria 200 years after Alexander.

I see that as of Monday morning the US ambassador to Afghanistan has lowered his nation's flag and already left the country, meanwhile the UK ambassador, Sir Laurie Bristow, is still processing visas. How very British. I just hope for his sake he doesn't end up like Gordon of Khartoum.

The British Defence Minister, a former soldier, broke down in tears (I think yesterday) as he admitted "some won't get back": the whole business is a humiliating, wasteful, shameful mess for the USA and the UK. They are likening it to the fall of Saigon - it is more chillingly reminiscent of 410 - or am I overreacting?

Perhaps we could send Prince Harry back there as "the man he has become, not the Prince he was born" - he could juggle for the Taliban. I am so ashamed to be British today.

God help the people of Afghanistan, especially the women.

I'm just amazed that all those supposedly running the show were caught by surprise at how fast the Afghan army collapsed, thereby allowing the Taliban to sweep across the country, once the announcement to withdraw foreign support was made. Given how fast the Taliban took control of the country in 1997 it was fairly clear that it was likely to happen very rapidly.

Temperance wrote:

God help the people of Afghanistan, especially the women.

Yes indeed, and at the risk of sounding like a cynical Daily Mail reader, I note that nearly all those scrambling to get on the last flights out of Kabul are men. It would appear that many fathers, husbands, brothers and sons are quite prepared to abandon their womenfolk to an uncertain fate just to save their own lives.

Meles meles wrote:

Temperance wrote:

God help the people of Afghanistan, especially the women.

Yes indeed, and at the risk of sounding like a cynical Daily Mail reader, I note that nearly all those scrambling to get on the last flights out of Kabul are men. It would appear that many fathers, husbands, brothers and sons are quite prepared to abandon their womenfolk to an uncertain fate just to save their own lives.

You don't sound  "like a cynical Daily Mail reader" - that's me, I suppose, although the Daily Mail is more laughed at than taken seriously chez moi - please believe me when I say that. I do read the Guardian too - but that is all doom and gloom these dark days, no doubt because that is what our world now is. But  I'm not completely cynical, I hope, just genuinely despairing at it all - the lies and denials and self-deception from all sides, woke or non-woke, religious or non-religious, left-wing or right-wing. Who was it that said the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own?
 
God help any gay men out there, too, MM.


EDIT: Sorry, I'm really down in the dumps today - a sort of guilt, I suppose, for the easy life I've had - and am having - here, fully vaccinated, in Devon, UK. Nothing to fear except getting old and not being able to tend my garden or swim in the sea. We don't know we are born here, do we - a 1000 years of never being invaded, of being rich and powerful, of being top or toppish dogs. Perhaps we should fear the karma (perhaps the Greek retribution/nemesis is the more accurate word?) that's coming our way - or is that woo-woo nonsense?

A foreign friend driving through contentious mobs had his car stoned from all sides and to their noisy rejoicing. Him eventually out of the way, they then went back to stoning each other. That's a little incident - but no different on the large front either. We have yet to see the other Afghan factions make their stand; that would be the several sectarian groups and of course clan feudal war lords who have their own agendas. What do Downing Street or the White house honestly think they can do about any of all this? It's somewhat like imposing law on travelling communities here..... hang on, aren't the genuine Roma supposed to be descended from the same Afghan/Paktoon stock. Oh Dear! I am not sure if a passing knowledge of history and such actually actually confuses one the more.

Priscilla wrote:

What do Downing Street or the White House honestly think they can do about any of all this?

I have no idea, but is that not the problem the experts are paid to advise on? I read with interest the following article from the Guardian and have been asking myself all afternoon if I am guilty of living in my own little "post-imperial fantasy" of "making the world a better place". Possibly - I like nice ideas, which no doubt indicates my foolishness. But the thought of leaving people - especially, as noted above, women and gay men -  to the tender mercies of a deeply oppressive theocracy fills me with horror. And perhaps, as Rory Stewart (who is an expert on Afghanistan), has observed in The Times, the US and its allies, notably the UK, will pay the price of allowing such an oppressive regime to "fill the vacuum".


Post-Imperial Fantasy?

From the article:

How many times must it be drummed into British heads that the British empire is over? It is dead, finished, outdated, not to be repeated. Yet Boris Johnson has just sent an aircraft carrier to the South China Sea. Britain has no need, let alone right, to rule other countries, to “make the world a better place”. No soldier need die for it, let alone 454 British soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan. The best Britain can now do is establish good relations with a new regime in Afghanistan – in liaison with Kabul’s neighbours Pakistan and Iran – to protect at least some of the good it has attempted to do this past 20 years. The world is not threatening Britain. Terrorism does not need state sponsors, nor will it be ended by state conquest.

But then perhaps I'm not the only fantasist who likes nice ideas - I refer to the sentence I have highlighted. How do you establish "good relations" with people who think the USA and the UK are the Great Satan and the Little Satan respectively?

This is from just last month:

"There is no military path to victory for the Taliban"

Well the Pashtun tribesmen - who make up the majority of the Taliban - kicked out the British in 1842 and again in 1880, the Russians in 1989, and now the US in 2021 ... so Raab and Johnson are dead right, there was absolutely no way of predicting the Taliban would be able to rapidly beat the poorly-paid, badly-led and largely corrupt Afghan army.  

Temperance wrote:

But  I'm not completely cynical, I hope, just genuinely despairing at it all - the lies and denials and self-deception from all sides, woke or non-woke, religious or non-religious, left-wing or right-wing. Who was it that said the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own?

Meanwhile in other news besides all the hand-wringing over Afghanistan, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that atmospheric CO₂ levels must peak in less than a decade if we to have any chance of avoiding a climatic apocalypse and that even if we do meet such a target several climatic tripping points have probably already been passed and so some damage is now irreversible. Over the past twenty years the US alone has spent 2 trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000,000) on Afghanistan: that sort of sum, if well-spent over the same time period, would have gone a long way towards stopping the impending disaster of global warming.

It's more neck-wringing we need, I suppose, rather than hand-wringing. There speaks the hardened Daily Mail reader.

Well, after all these cheery little posts I'm either going to top myself or vacuum upstairs. Dyson to the rescue once again. Thank God for our great British inventors, even if they are Brexit-loving billionaires living in Singapore.

No neck wringing, please - whoever. I am only surprised by others' surprise. Surely everyone realised that much of the army there were actually Taliban getting a good training and firearms etc. Squadies posted there did a fine job and many suffered so much in a situation that could never be resolved.  A long time ago I wrote that it can only be resolved from within and that will take a very long time....... think Wallace, Nicola and clan mentality - hundreds of years and feelings run as strong in some quarters - at least without blood letting now and in a modern format. So this it must be there. It can only be changed by those who are brave enough to change it from within - well that is my opinion based on fifty years of living in  but understanding such foreign parts less every year -geometrically and arithmetically progressed, at that.   However loud the crowd  shouts on either side the endless match goes on - and we have yet to see the second division challengers move in. And thought for the day - there are  also very many strongly  opinionated Taliban women too...... and  please believe me, they really are strong

God help and preserve us - female fanatics are terrifying, be they American or Afghan. Imagine a debate between Trump's spiritual advisor (Paula White) and some inspired Taliban lady.

Re neck-wringing - I was speaking metaphorically, of course. But a metaphor is a dangerous figure of speech in our post-everything world. Indeed, speech itself is going that way.

But that way madness lies. I think I might binge on old Jane Austen DVDs and then "Yes, Minister!" today - after I've vacuumed the entire house (not just upstairs). That or cultivate my garden. And count my blessings. And check the FTSE.

Ah, yes. Strong as in great walls that cannot be breached - in a human context, people with a mind set that cannot be changed. In this context, unquestioning minds totally convinced by their beliefs usually delivered in the soft and gentle voice of total certainty; yeah - perhaps a bit like Eve being enticed to try the apple. And it often works.......

Have edited above. Must cheer up. A nice cup of tea and a biscuit I think.

Priscilla wrote:

Ah, yes. Strong as in great walls that cannot be breached - in a human context, people with a mind set that cannot be changed. In this context, unquestioning minds totally convinced by their beliefs usually delivered in the soft and gentle voice of total certainty; yeah - perhaps a bit like Eve being enticed to try the apple. And it often works.......

Original post deleted because it was such a muddle.

Not so sure about "soft and gentle"  voices here: the voice of the resolute fanatic, male or female, Christian or Islamic, is usually harsh and strident. Maybe the serpent spoke softly, but the critter was just encouraging a bit of independent thought after all. History, on the whole, has been unfair to the poor old snake -  even Milton thought that, though he couldn't quite bring himself to admit it...

But I'm replacing one muddle with another. Best shut up for a bit.

But how do you discuss such stuff, muddled or not, with the likes of Paula White or some ardent Talibanista? Shades of Handmaid's Tale. Shudder.

Ah! But there you have it. We think of hell fire bigots but it's also what I keep on saying, it ain't always like us here. The soft voice with gentle smile approach is a very hard one to counter in an effort to induce questioning. Questioning ones faith just does not happen there. Think nun... and I do not mean the media sort but real nuns in prayer orders - and not the teaching sort, either. Constant soft waters can grind as well as a stormy swell

LiR, on another thread, wrote:

Trike, I've been following the Afghanistan thread though I haven't posted there because I feel other members of Res Hist have contributed to the thread more eloquently than I can.

Well, I for one, LiR, have being wishing I'd not attempted to contribute anything (muddled rather than eloquent) on this topic. I feel daft today, as I rather suspect my understanding of the politics of this unhappy region is mainly based on Carry On Up the Khyber. I know nothing and understand less - rather like our Foreign Secretary, it would seem. I have reached this conclusion having spent today reading various takes on the whole unhappy business and trying to make myself a little better informed. Fat chance. I'm even more confused now. We like to think we genuinely want to defend human rights, but is that indeed, if we are honest, just virtue-signalling and useless hand-wringing? The British have not been that important out there (or anywhere else for that matter) according to most commentators: we have not had a foreign policy independent of the USA since the Suez mess of the 1950s. A humiliating thought, and a very painful one, when so many British soldiers have died or have been maimed in various war zones during my lifetime. And human rights - can the USA - or the British - claim any moral high ground there?

So, is the official line then let them get on with it - and stop pretending any of us can do anything? Is that the way forward now? And is it best to stop pretending also that any of us here (with the exception, perhaps, of Priscilla who has lived out there) understand much about the whole bloody mess? I am still horribly uncomfortable with this conclusion, but is it the realistic - and grown-up - approach? As ever, replies on a postcard please.

One thing I would like explaining - not mentioned at all here - how does Saudi Arabia fit into the picture? A shadowy presence, but an important one?

I am no expert and have only lived at times close by but have a bit of experience. My contention is that the guys who want their law imposed must also run the economy. Iran sort of manages this because many of her highly educated support the Shia system. For what it is worth I recall a city affair when a particuar group won control of it - through election.  Chaos followed as they scrambled for running the cash cows.... so after all the qualified chaps had been  tossed out we eventually had no electricity, little water, traffic went haywire and no one was working the land for market crops... etc chaos and another election sorted that. The young gun toting guys - once they have had a field day of vengeance  may not be fit to take on  proper jobs - and the old men who pull the strings may find running an economy - without milch-cow aid, a real trial. Now Saudia may help out there - but not if the Shia lot pitch in for control of their patches. Yes, a muddle and mess, and horribly cruel and painful to witness but - in my opinion - only one that can be resolved from within. And really I can say no more........how can anyone look at what is going on there without pain. tears and the stabbing guilt of not doing anything?

Added later. I have just read the word pragmatic as a possible route to a sensible appeasement. Mmmmm - I guess that is also the understanding the new leaders are diddling about with China - er - they now having control of a land very rich with the sort of stuff that is needed to make the modern world tick - or go bang - they do have a good bargaining chip for lots and lots of the stuff that might make economies work. I do also seem to have missed film of lots of planes taking off the many Chinese already there. I expect the bearded one can be ever so pragmatic when it suits.

Priscilla wrote:

And really I can say no more........how can anyone look at what is going on there without pain. tears and the stabbing guilt of not doing anything?

And amidst the terrible, terrible human tragedies - those haunting images of executions, beatings, terrified children and, perhaps worst of all, desperate parents giving up their babies to soldiers - spare a thought too for the wretched animals of Kabul.  The hardened men of the Taliban will show no mercy to man, woman - or beast. One British ex-Marine, Pen Farthing, is still trying to help the many strays - dogs, cats, donkeys, even a goat and a cow - he has looked after in his animal shelter in the Afghan capital. Some may think this is sentimental and irrelevant - but I for one am thankful for his kind heart.  This veteran, who refuses to leave, sums up the situation brilliantly:

Operation Ark

Mr Farthing said the situation was “heartbreaking” and he felt Western governments had let down the Afghan people. He also feels angry that the loss of British soldiers in Afghanistan – including those he served with – was “in vain”.

“I’m ashamed to say that I’m British,” he said. “This is a masterclass by the Western world in how to completely screw up a country."





.

Some interesting comments from both Mr Farthing and the Guardian's China Affairs correspondent, Vincent Li, on BBC News Channel this morning - not so much about the animals mentioned above, but about many of the worrying political questions the present crisis raises. Farthing was scathing about the latest Biden speech...

The China correspondent mentioned something I knew nothing about: copper. Apparently one of the world's richest copper deposits is situated very near Kabul, and the Chinese have actually already had mining engineers out there - ironically protected until very recently by US security forces. I had no idea that Afghanistan, like so many countries in Africa where Chinese influence is now enormous, has such rich mineral deposits.

Part of me does so wish I understood more about all this; but the other part of me wants to be an ostrich. A friend last night said that all this is now none of our business and we should all stop watching/fretting about/hand-wringing over etc. situations that are quite beyond our control and influence, either as individuals or as a nation. Is there indeed some wisdom in such a stance? She was, incidentally, appalled at my worrying about cats and dogs and donkeys - the ultimate in Western nonsense, in her opinion. It's a viewpoint, I suppose.

Temperance wrote:

I had no idea that Afghanistan, like so many countries in Africa where Chinese influence is now enormous, has such rich mineral deposits.

The ancient Egyptians were importing lazurite (for its deep blue pigmentation) from Sar-e-Sang over 3,000 years ago. So too were the ancient Chinese. Although Kabul is about equidistant between Cairo and Peking, Sar-e-Sang, located in the far east of Afghanistan, is much closer to China than it is to Egypt:



Here's a short but interesting article on the history of lapis lazuli which includes the Chinese dimension often overlooked in Western narratives:

Lapis Lazuli: The Stone of Heaven

The Taliban have already exploited the lapis lazuli market, have they not (see article), but is it other minerals which will make some Afghans rich and powerful? The information given in the link below, especially the mention of lithium, I found very enlightening - and worrying. So is this - as ever - all about economics and world domination, rather than religion? Or is it both - a terrifying prospect. How corrupt - or corruptible - are the bearded ones? How corruptible were our own devout, church-going (Protestant?) industrialists/entrepreneurs of yesteryear?

Afghanistan's Minerals


When Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Aug. 15, they didn’t just seize control of the Afghan government. They also gained the ability to control access to huge deposits of minerals that are crucial to the global clean energy economy.

In 2010, an internal US Department of Defense memo called Afghanistan “the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” after American geologists discovered the vast extent of the country’s mineral wealth, valued at at least $1 trillion. The silvery metal is essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy batteries.

But just how interested are the Chinese? The article goes on to suggest there are many difficulties...

And here's me fretting about the animals...

PS Financial Times  from 2013:

Downing St. Backs Afghan Mining Projects

So has this all been about nation-building - democracy, women's rights etc. etc. - or wealth-building for all interested parties?

Of course not......and an arrogance to think that a handful of squadies could keep the peace and  steer all to honorable intent in a land 2,.5 or more times bigger, with an armed mob getting itself ready t take over etc and hungry countries already having a go at mining for all the stuff the world needs - and of top of that, the religious lot will not care about the huge poppy crop because it will only be used to make lots of money and of course only used by a load of worldwide infidels, anyway... and who cares about them?
Aye, Afghanistan is a wounded land and what do a load of blabbering MP's think we might do to stop the gangrene, I cannot begin the think.
And viewed in the scale of most wars  the suffering will be as ever,  the  animals first, then children. then women and well meaning men and throughout, as ever, it will also be, about how the value of its land might improve another place through its produce or position and provide wealth that would line some different pockets.
But I am old and perhaps too jaded by years of having a glimmer of  insight in to how things change and why. Dear God, I hope I am wrong about all of this.

I've been reading this morning how we are witnessing the end "of the American century" - a collapse similar to the collapse of Roman power and influence (the Romans lasted a bit longer than a mere century, of course). Is this prediction of total US collapse a little premature - hysterical even -  and can the "Groans of the Afghans" be compared to the The Groans of the Britons (Gemitus Britannorum), the final appeal made between 446 and 454 by the Britons to the Roman military for assistance against Pict and Scot raiders, as recorded later by Gildas?

For the sixth-century British writer Gildas, the end of Roman Britain was sudden, dramatic and apocalyptic. He recounts the Britons pleading for help from the Roman commander in Gaul. “The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians,” they apparently wailed. “Between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned.”

Sounds familiar indeed.

Just read this too which I'm mulling over as I drink my tea here.

“One of the great dangers for analysis that seeks to be critical of imperialism is the assumption that only the west, indeed only the USA, has imperial ambitions and scope. This is fatal,” said Priyamvada Gopal, professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge University. “By the end of this century, if the world makes it there, the centre of imperial power will have shifted entirely."


So whose turn is it next to take up the central position? The smart money is on China, of course, but there are other inspired contenders, God help us and not them. Will the time ever come when we will all be wistfully asking, "What did the Americans ever do for us, then?" (Coca-Cola? Google? i-everything, Netflix? ) I'm glad I'm old too, Priscilla - no longer likely to be around to witness/worry about it all. But what a legacy we are handing over - it's heartbreaking. As for glimmers of insight - mine are barely visible. More like ignis fatuus, if the truth be known.

It all makes silly old Brexit and all our anguished debate over that little hiccup seem so futile, irrelevant and so utterly, utterly stupid.

Today, we are told, the last UK refugee flights will leave Kabul. Other countries in the recue missions have already stopped flights but there are people left. They might make for the borders - and if official crossing points are closed there are certainly a large number unofficial but more rigorous routes to escape by. ... eventually, perhaps, when the heady bloodlust wears off a bit... if ever, of course. I have never quite trusted sheepdogs - there's something in the eyes.... but I digress.
There was a big MP clamour for helping the refugees so now they must each go back to their own patches and ensure that those that made it are properly helped there into our society. Some places are less than welcoming, I read.

To be honest I have been wondering why the many of the thousands young and fit young Afghani men who were and those who are still asking for political asylum in many of the European countries are not organizing themselves in forming a resistance movement/army and attempt to free their country( Afghanistan) from being taken over by the regime they are running away from.

Was this not what was done by many of young men from the European countries when their home countries were invaded by Germany in World War 2 and I am thinking here of Polish ,French ,Dutch, Scandinavian and quite a few others. Some how they made their way into the UK and joined armies in exile. Many of these men after training  parachuted  back into their countries and formed resistance movements.

In other words these young and fit Afghani men should be told NOT to expect the NATO army and its Allies to sort out the Afghani crisis but THEY (the Afghani men) should get organised and free their home country from oppression.

Dirk

Yes, Dirk, I agree with you -but as I see it, the current mob are the resistance. And they are an ideological one so difficult to tangle with from within. Others come to mind - and Res Historians please set me right if I am  making a goof here because I am writing as I think - Castro, Tito, Mao and many others in my life time have wrested power within their own lands. Now getting it away from them is another game altogether. They have all the secret strongholds, some ground level support and some  have been merciless to any who counter them - in particular taking it out on the family, friends, neighbourhood of any one who opposes them - often in most barbaric ways, too.
To oppose takes guts, outside help...... here we go again.....and a  goal worth dying for; exchanging one set of corrupt officials with another is not worth dying for.
And there is also a world wide band of young people who belong to the group of 'I Wantitall Now.' Wealth, fast cars, cool drag.. .. ie the  trappings of the high life  are all  viewed as an entitlement denied them.  Taking the    path of education, hard work and rising  through input is a right to many only possible in a promised land ( as MM wisely puts it) like UK. Many  in UK seem to be able to live quite well by milking the system.... and I know many of all ages.
So, as I see it, the regime has to bring itself down through ineptitude and that surely takes time and awful pain to endure.
Would that this benighted land had the forested wildernesses where rebels might survive;  all the best caves in the barren mountains are already occupied.

Recent events in Afghanistan have perhaps shown that the really hard-line, extreme fundamentalist religious nutters, are ISIS (or whatever local freelance variant of them feels they have holy sanction to impose their own particular radical ideals), and that actually the Taliban - whilst not the nicest of people by any means - are perhaps an organisation that the world at large could work with, if only on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". We, 'the West', generally seem able to hold our noses and tolerate the stink arising from the extreme Saudi regime (and happily sell arms and real estate to them too, whilst also inviting them into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot etc.) so why not also accept the simple practicalities of dealing with their paid lapdogs in Afghanistan, the Taliban? I can see that such a policy might well be branded "appeasing the enemy" (but who is the real enemy anyway?) however it might well also result in less deaths, suffering and persecution overall, as well as offering a more sustainable way forward. No?

With regards to Dirk's comments (above) especially about WW2 ... It is easy to be a keyboard warrior, but you, Dirk, should at least recall that in 1940 the Dutch army - very well-equipped and organized, albeit neutral and with a non-militaristic culture - also capitulated and surrendered within just a few days of the German invasion. Also don't forget that the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands was actually welcomed, at least initially, by many ordinary Dutch.

Meles meles,

 Yes. you are quite correct by mentioning that the Dutch army surrendered five days after the German army invaded but they did so because the German air force had bombarded Rotterdam with  a huge loss of civilian lives and threatened to bombard Utrecht next.
Also the Dutch army was not that modernised after all.
Yes, there were indeed people who did welcome the German invasion and believe it or not the majority of them were the aristocracy who actually turned around quite quickly when once they realised the war was not going Germany's way. They then started to finance resistance work and ...........after the war were praised and got away with having collaborated with the German occupation forces at  the beginning of  the German occupation.



Dirk

Temperance wrote:

One British ex-Marine, Pen Farthing, is still trying to help the many strays - dogs, cats, donkeys, even a goat and a cow - he has looked after in his animal shelter in the Afghan capital.

The Americans have been damned if they do and damned if they don’t on this. Firstly, US forces were criticised for evacuating military dogs on planes while humans were still waiting at the gates of the airport, while later (after the evacuation date had passed and US forces had officially left) American contractors were criticised for having abandoned their dogs.

Interestingly, dogs (and animals generally) have featured in the story of Western interventions in Afghanistan since at least the First British Afghan War of 1839-42. When they invaded, the British under John, Baron Keane took with them not only thousands of horses but also hundreds of camels and scores of cattle. The 16th Queen's Regiment of Light Dragoon Lancers commanded by Sir Joseph Thackwell even took along a pack of foxhounds with them. It’s unlikely that they actually expected to really go chasing Blanford’s fox across the slopes of the Hindu Kush but the pack was taken along more in the form of a mascot. Indeed, the foxhounds only stayed in Afghanistan for a few months before they, along with the 16th Lancers, were already back at regimental headquarters in Meerut (i.e. 25 miles from Delhi) by February 1840.




(An 1836 painting by Richard Barrett Davis of the Quorn Hunt.)
   
 
This raises another point regarding the return of British forces from Afghanistan at the time of the First British-Afghan War. One of the myths of that war was that there was only one survivor of the disaster and that the stunned British then didn’t dare return to the country for decades. This is simply not true on both counts.

Firstly, let’s look at the ‘there was only one survivor’ myth. Baron Keane had invaded in 1839 with a force of 20,000 soldiers accompanied by 35,000 civilian auxiliaries. This equalled 55,000 people – effectively a town on the move. For comparison’s sake, the populations of the largest cities in the Indus valley region at the time, such as Peshawar, Multan and Lahore (the capital of the Punjab) were approximately 100,000 each. In other words, Keane’s army had a population equivalent to, and sometimes greater than, any city or town in Afghanistan be that Quetta, Kandahar or Kabul. By the time of William Elphinstone’s retreat in 1842, however, the strength of the British-led forces was down to 5,000 soldiers and 11,000 auxiliaries and civilians. This means that three-quarters of Keane’s original forces had already left Afghanistan by the time Elphinstone’s army was massacred in the Khourd Caubul Pass and at Gandamak.

Secondly, with regard to ‘the British not daring to return for decades’ myth, then within months of the disaster in January 1842, a British East India Company army under William Nott and a British Indian army under George Pollock were back in Kabul and in full control by September. Nott’s army had arrived via Kandahar while Pollock’s army had arrived via Jalalabad. Both had also picked up imprisoned or besieged Britons along the way. Only then, and after somewhat spitefully burning down Kabul’s bazaar, did they leave to return to India.




(The large ears and grey fur of Blanford's fox native to Persia and Afghanistan. Only identified to Western science in the 1870s, it most likely would have been unknown to the Irish lancers and their hounds cantering into Afghanistan in 1839.)

And one more thing. IN the 1960'70's Kabul at least was a swinging city to which droves of hippies made their way for their habit. Women not only mostly went unveiled but preferred skirts and western fashion. It was a time of the continued  and long enjoyed Great Game ... this time when America and Russia were pitted against each other as to which might be the more generous....... roads, airfields, schools etc came about that way,
Now they are stroking Chinese fur but they have  a more limpet grasp of things and this may not turn out for the best. The Afghans may well meet their match.
I was always amused by listening to American diplomats' opinion - like little delegates from the nursery trying to take on old Oxford dons
Much of my info I heard from foreign office people from several countries - I know one who was offered an Ambassadorial posting there, turning it down - though attracted by the history and circumstances,  he thought he would become  bogged down by and endless stream of penniless western druggies in trouble at his door.
So this wounded land has a see-saw kind of history with ever such  wily, clever and manipulative tribal leaders often getting the best of everyone. It must be something in the air.
PS I have seen several sorts of foxes in many a desert areas all over the subcontinent from Rajistan to the Khyber frontier and the Balooch..... they all seem to have big  ears.... and of course they were hunted. In many towns  the wild pi dogs are descended from these pack hounds; I know because I had one - a real hunt hound if ever.

Be in awe of the remarkable women of Kabul who daily march for their rights against odds that make the soul blanch with anxiety for their future. Change there will only come from within but at a dreadful cost. They humble us.