Afghanistan - 20 years on

Ayahuasca said:
It's a great way to ostracise yourself, try criticising and questioning everything at work and see how far you get.
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Considering the propensity of businesses that grow too large to manage end up imploding from a lack of scrutiny, i'm not so such that's the wisest course of action for all involved, but if all you want to do is protect your own job then keeping your mouth is likely the pragmatic option even if long-term it may have been the wrong one.
 
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Neil79 said:
Some of these refugee stories are a bit suspect to me, especially ones currently living in lavish hotels. One guy on the news was talking about his daughter being killed, his wife being beaten. Yet during the entire time he was smiling and chuckling. Sorry but I'd find that very hard to talk about if it was me.
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A bit suspect??? I suspect many are openly taking the urine, and the fact we even give them a hearing is ridiculous. As someone said earlier, many of these will be future perpetrators of anti West trouble.
 
StriderX said:
Considering the propensity of businesses that grow too large to manage end up imploding from a lack of scrutiny, i'm not so such that's the wisest course of action for all involved, but if all you want to do is protect your own job then keeping your mouth is likely the pragmatic option even if long-term it may have been the wrong one.
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It's not black and white, I'm not saying you should be mute on every topic and decision but if you literally question and criticise everything then you're going to have a hard time. Of course, if you can put a solid argument together for why something should be done differently and the means to do it, then that's fine but most criticisms are so basic they aren't even worth considering.

It's very easy to criticise and question, it's far more difficult to put together a proposal that isn't glossing over hundreds of different factors.
 
I'm already betting that the Taliban will reveal their true colours come 31st August. They've basically said it's impossible to evacuate everyone out of Afghanistan in 7 days time. I think the US will come under a lot of negativity if they just up and leave on the 31st knowing that the remaining armies providing support wouldn't be able to defend the airport.

What's the expectation on the UK army if the US does up and leave? Accept that's the end and whomever is left is left, or take a risk and stay to try and evacuate more Afghani's knowing that the Taliban could storm at any moment.
 
kinetic747 said:
The original deadline for leaving was May, so I'm a little confused as to why everything has been left until the last minute, or have we been bringing people out since May? :confused:
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Pretty much no one thought the Taliban would take over that fast. Even 10 days before Kabul fell the most pessimistic estimates would be another 3 months at least before Kabul was under any threat. Personally I was thinking it was more like 3 weeks though. Even when things started to escalate they were still talking of having at least another month until suddenly they were realising it was 2-3 hours before the Taliban were in Kabul.
 
Ayahuasca said:
It's not black and white, I'm not saying you should be mute on every topic and decision but if you literally question and criticise everything then you're going to have a hard time. Of course, if you can put a solid argument together for why something should be done differently and the means to do it, then that's fine but most criticisms are so basic they aren't even worth considering.

It's very easy to criticise and question, it's far more difficult to put together a proposal that isn't glossing over hundreds of different factors.
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Sounds like you're in management :p Criticisms that are "so basic" should be ignored? What does that even mean? If a plan is so flawed that the criticisms are obvious then the criticisms probably shouldn't be ignored :p
 
kinetic747 said:
The original deadline for leaving was May, so I'm a little confused as to why everything has been left until the last minute, or have we been bringing people out since May? :confused:
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I suspect we've had the odd plane leaving since May, but nothing in the magnitude from the last couple of days.

Frankly the organisation has been appalling. Were they just relying on hope that the Taliban wouldn't have taken power back by 31st August and could continue after that date.

I guess they've also underestimated a) the number of Afghani's that want to leave, and b) the number of extended support staff and their families that need to be evacuated for their safety. - I can't recall seeing any numbers on translators reported, but it sounds like US/UK recruited tens of thousands of translators.
 
FoxEye said:
Sounds like you're in management :p Criticisms that are "so basic" should be ignored? What does that even mean? If a plan is so flawed that the criticisms are obvious then the criticisms probably shouldn't be ignored :p
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You're assuming that it's valid in the first place and there's a difference between obvious and basic.
 
Semple said:
I suspect we've had the odd plane leaving since May, but nothing in the magnitude from the last couple of days.

Frankly the organisation has been appalling. Were they just relying on hope that the Taliban wouldn't have taken power back by 31st August and could continue after that date.

I guess they've also underestimated a) the number of Afghani's that want to leave, and b) the number of extended support staff and their families that need to be evacuated for their safety. - I can't recall seeing any numbers on translators reported, but it sounds like US/UK recruited tens of thousands of translators.
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At least publicly there has been no agreement to just hand the country over to the Taliban - though for some reason that is the impression everyone seems to have got after a week of news! (albeit a realistic appraisal of the Afghan armed forces wouldn't leave many people in much hope they'd hold out very long).

Generally the idea seems to have been that the Afghan army would hold them back for months yet or even some thinking they'd manage to keep the Taliban under control.
 
Rroff said:
At least publicly there has been no agreement to just hand the country over to the Taliban - though for some reason that is the impression everyone seems to have got after a week of news! (albeit a realistic appraisal of the Afghan armed forces wouldn't leave many people in much hope they'd hold out very long).

Generally the idea seems to have been that the Afghan army would hold them back for months yet or even some thinking they'd manage to keep the Taliban under control.
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Yep, although i think giving back the country to the Taliban is pretty much a given at this point.

In terms of numbers on the ground, the US/Western allies are severely outnumbered. If the Taliban are threatening consequences, then that would require the US to send in more troops, at which point we're going backwards.

Frankly as much as the Taliban are stupid, it's even more stupid to threaten consequences when all Western allies have agreed to leave the country, just as soon as everyone who wants to be evacuated, is evacuated.
 
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