Taliban Can form US policy, but not her allies

 Hi All,

Last week I compared the debacle in Afghanistan to Vietnam. In fact I will admit the analogy is somewhat misplaced : once that war was over, whilst Vietnam was united under Communist  rule, the state was , unlike Cuba,  content to consolidate its rule and defend her own homeland -hence the brief war against two Communist states -  Communist China and the overthrowing of the  Communist Pol Pot regime . But aside from that Vietnam wasn't exporting terrorists or funding to attack the American, let along European continents. Unlike the Taliban, who, as sure as night follows day will be doing just that. In fact this was the reason why America and the UK went into that country in the first place, alongside getting Bin Laden and his associates, there was also a feeling that no state should become a refuge, base or training ground for terrorists. In fact most of this got lost in the wind, especially as Tony Blair - the Liberal Imperialist that he was- soaked up the kool aid of the American 'neo-conservative' movement which had as its core belief that liberal  democracies are good and that rouge states/the world should be remade in that- American-  image, by the use of American military power if necessary. Added to this by Blair was the further identikit of women's rights, gay rights and all the other 'rights' causes that the left have developed in the past 30 years. Liberal Interventionism was a thing.

 It's hard to see the conservative part in the Neo-Conservative  title, because the ideals sounds like something utopian and liberal, for conservatives generally tend to apply realpolitk to international affairs. Hence why the Taliban is an enemy is because it wishes to harm America, Britain and  other allied states around the world, but Saudi isn't because whilst Saudi hardly treats women any differently to the Taliban and has strict Sharia law as well,  Saudi isn't (officially) exporting global terrorism everywhere, but is pumping out oil and pricing it in USD. You could apply the logic here to Communist  Vietnam which is being courted as a potential ally nowadays against China. It is also not hard to see why  these conservative countries wouldn't like this form of liberal democracy to be imposed upon them and why when there was little alternative they'd go to the traditional forms of Islam as a safety net and bulwark. 

So yes it's Bush and Blair's fault for not managing expectations or being able to pull out when things seemed better. And yes Biden was speaking with the majority support of opinion polls which wanted to pull out - yes Obama and Trump had promised the same and he didn't want to end up like that. But I think Biden can be heavily criticised now that this decision has been made on how it is being implemented : has  Biden refused to budge on the timetable,  which is purely a matter of time beating logistical capability, despite the pleading  and begging of his key allies -UK, France and Germany,  because the Taliban had already said no to this request. There you have it. The Taliban - YES ! THE BLOODY TALIBAN IS GIVEN MORE WEIGHT IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS BY THIS POTUS  THAN THAT OF  THREE KEY ALLIES OF THE US! If that doesn't tell you something about how dangerous and weak Biden is then you are in an alternative reality. Also not  reported is that it is British and not American troops who are going out of the Kabul airport to rescue westerners, including an American CNN newsreporter and crew. Also Biden is a democrat : the party of feminism, anti racism and gay rights etc etc. It's strange how all of these are tossed under the bus, because of opinion polls, isn't it? 

 What has also gone over the radar is that Afghanistan is going to starve without humanitarian intervention and is also barely  coping with covid , so that Taliban do not hold all the cards. But then this is why the west failed in the first place, because it would not use something like 'agree to an extension of the evacuation or see you and your people starve to death'  as a diplomatic tool. I think that when eventually  China takes over, the third world and their regimes will look back wishing for the days of the weak liberal west... because China would do something like that and more.