An Afghan woman in Kabul: ‘Now I have to burn everything I achieved’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/an-afghan-woman-in-kabul-now-i-have-to-burn-everything-i-achieved

by seaknoll • 5 years ago

40 24 5 years ago

theguardian.com

Goety4• 5 years ago

This is the kind of thing that could force a president to resign.

InTheArena• 5 years ago

If peoples votes mattered then maybe. Biden has learned from Trump that all that matters is control of the party.

Relax masking standards, drop testing, don’t collect state data just like trump and the exact same outcome. But you won’t hear a peep from democrats just like republicans never confronted trump.

dimator• 5 years ago

I highly doubt that. I think in most Americans' minds Afghanistan has been an abject failure for years. It has not been among the main talking points of this administration or the one before it. I believe most Americans will just be relieved it's done, and won't care what happens there next.

Goety4• 5 years ago

Afghanistan intervention has been popular in America. What hasn't been popular is the plan and execution of the intervention. This will continue to be the case.

To add to this administrative insult, US relationship with the collapsing Afghanistan government was ended in the most humiliating way. The collapse was not inevitable.

The US public should not stand for this.

The current mood of the US is that the public does not know what the current administration is doing domestically and abroad. Outside of a few identified 'throw money at a problem' bills the administration is not popular outside of 'at least it is not Trump'.

Vision is lacking and the US cannot legislate out of core structural problems and from this there was improper use of authority by multiple government branches. I do not think congress should have neutered presidential war authority. The US needs better stewardship by every branch and to go back to operating government like intended.

MisterBastahrd3• 5 years ago

Nobody on the left wanted to be involved in Afghanistan in the first place, and the continuation of Trumpian isolationism means that few on the right want anything to do with it either.

It's going to be seen as ultimately regrettable, but people of that region have long showed that their idea of what government is and should be doesn't mesh with our own.

awnird• 5 years ago

America has been losing wars for most of my life and no one has resigned. Why is this one any different?

Goety4• 5 years ago

In a few words this is (very likely) permanent.

America hasn't so much lost a war but failed to maintain a coherent political vision.

This has enormous world shaking geopolitical implications that will continue to create a disadvantage to US interests.

luckylion• 5 years ago

They could learn from the Kurds: women can fight just like men can. Hoping that someone else will fight your war for you will leave you vulnerable and disappointed.

shimylining• 5 years ago

So simple! Some people dont want to fight or see the violence.

What you said is really out of touch.

salawat• 5 years ago

Violence is real, impossible to argue with, and afterward leaves only one person standing to guide the future.

There is a reason why the most willing to employ it stay in control. If you don't believe this is the case. Think next time about the first thing a cop does when things don't go as planned.

They call for more backup. More violence.

It is the fundamental unpleasantness and unsatisfactory dissonance with the ideal of a civil society that keeps us from seeing or presenting the world as such, but when the chips are down; are you willing to make the other SOB in your way die for he believes is right is the most pertinent question.

It ain't pretty, but fail to recognize it at your own peril.

seaknoll2• 5 years ago

Say what you will about the shit job that the US military industrial complex has done in this region, but I can't help but feel that the real horror of the withdrawal is that 50% of the country's population is being condemned to what is essentially slavery.

belter• 5 years ago

Your concern is a valid one, but its hypocritical if the US Administration mentions that. Does not seem to be a concern when dealing with allies like Saudi Arabia as long as the oil keeps flowing.

Where is the US administration? Not a single press briefing or president communication for 48 hours...

seaknoll2• 5 years ago

I completely agree.

jamroom• 5 years ago

From yesterday:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Wowfunhappy2• 5 years ago

My feeling is that we tried. We tried for 20 years. It didn't work.

At some point, you have to throw in the towel and cut your losses—even when those losses are really, unimaginably terrible. 20 years is certainly past that point.

There's a lot of good we could do in the world with the resources we put into Afghanistan.

barelysapient3• 5 years ago

Completely agree.

The problem is the population never owned the country. They didn't liberate themselves. And they're at home as conquered populace.

Someday the west will learn that Democracy can't be "gifted". People have to want it. People have to fight and die for it. And then, and only then, maybe, you'll get democracy.

The only chance that women in the article will see any freedom again, is if she take up arms start shooting the people who say "you can't".

yongjik• 5 years ago

The only chance that women in the article will see any freedom again, is if she take up arms start shooting the people who say "you can't".

I wish Americans stopped viewing social change as a matter of shooting bad guys. The entire Afghanistan debacle is, in a sense, America giving people an endless supply of guns, saying "Can't you guys just shoot all the bad guys? Come on! We'll give you as much ammo as you want!"

Fat good it did anyone.

Tycho• 5 years ago

The most striking thing to me is the incoherence. It’s as if a bunch of sprawling, unaccountable bureaucracies —- the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, Congress, the DNC, the MIC —- were prosecuting essentially independent agendas that could co-exist under the fog of a forever war, but someone accidentally triggered the exit routine and rather than graceful closure you see the incoherent stuttering of a bunch of zombie processes.

An Afghan woman in Kabul: ‘Now I have to burn everything I achieved’

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