Kabul - 1975 all over again?

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Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Мастер » Sat Aug 14, 2021 5:03 am

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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Lance » Sat Aug 14, 2021 1:15 pm

Yeah, pretty much.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby g-one » Sat Aug 14, 2021 6:00 pm

Didn't the US say something about the Soviets getting into 'their own Vietnam' back in the '80s ?
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Мастер » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:30 pm

g-one wrote:Didn't the US say something about the Soviets getting into 'their own Vietnam' back in the '80s ?


Zbigniew Brzezinski said that.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby tubeswell » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:37 pm

Мастер wrote:Zbigniew Brzezinski


Now that you mention him, I remember that name. I don't remember who he was or what else he might have said, but I remember that name.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Мастер » Sun Aug 15, 2021 3:54 am

tubeswell wrote:
Мастер wrote:Zbigniew Brzezinski


Now that you mention him, I remember that name. I don't remember who he was or what else he might have said, but I remember that name.


National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter.

He was bragging when he said it, look what we tricked the Soviets into doing. He probably didn't realise his own (adopted) country would follow their example a couple of decades later.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Arneb » Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:52 am

So he was right twice. Impressive...

'German security is to be defended at the Hindukush, too' is another one of those great quotations about Afghanistan that will haunt their authors forever
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Arneb » Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:00 am

The resemblance is certainly uncanny.

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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby g-one » Sun Aug 15, 2021 4:48 pm

Surely you guys have it all wrong. ;)
Here's the straight talk:

"Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam?"

"None whatsoever," Biden replied. "Zero. What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:29 am

g-one wrote:Surely you guys have it all wrong. ;)
Here's the straight talk:

"Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam?"

"None whatsoever," Biden replied. "Zero. What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."


OK, so Kabul was captured yesterday by a far less capable force than the one that took Saigon.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Richard A » Mon Aug 16, 2021 1:56 pm

At least the UK kept out of Vietnam - although, to be fair, I think there was sense in the UK joining in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. (The Iraq War was a very different matter.) There's now a lot of discussion of the British Government's position - although again (and I really hate being charitable to BoJo), once the US pulled out, we had no choice but to join them. But there is a key question for the UK: the Afghans who worked for us and who are Taliban's death list for collaboration. We're apparently getting some of them out, but a limited number; under the British regulations you can be disqualified on really minor grounds. Keir Starmer should be saying something clearly on this, but that would make him sound too like the Corbynistas he's trying to weed out.

Funny that we're able to offer a few million Hong Kongers the right to come here but are nitpicking over a far fewer number of Afghan support staff.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Arneb » Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:06 pm

We're having the same problem. Plus, we have a far less capable military.
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Re: Kabul - 1975 all over again?

Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:22 pm

Richard A wrote:At least the UK kept out of Vietnam - although, to be fair, I think there was sense in the UK joining in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. (The Iraq War was a very different matter.) There's now a lot of discussion of the British Government's position - although again (and I really hate being charitable to BoJo), once the US pulled out, we had no choice but to join them. But there is a key question for the UK: the Afghans who worked for us and who are Taliban's death list for collaboration. We're apparently getting some of them out, but a limited number; under the British regulations you can be disqualified on really minor grounds. Keir Starmer should be saying something clearly on this, but that would make him sound too like the Corbynistas he's trying to weed out.

Funny that we're able to offer a few million Hong Kongers the right to come here but are nitpicking over a far fewer number of Afghan support staff.


None of them asked my advice, but if they had, I would have shown them this picture, which demonstrates what tends to happen when the western countries decide a war isn't fun any more.

Evacuating+Saigon.jpg
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