Afghanistan

The horrible news coming out from Afghanistan the Taliban taking over after the Americans have left the country.

My total lack of capability to do anything about it.

It sure looks like the USA, and in general "The West" has abandoned the Afghani people in general and the women in specific. It looks like this is the fault of Biden and his administration.

But there are other voices as well. The people who say that this withdrawal had to happen sooner or later. The fact that there was an Afghani army that fall apart in a matter of days. Basically it seems there was almost no fighting against the Taliban. As if the Afghan army just handed over the rule to the Taliban.

I doubt the 2-3,000 US soldiers who were in Afghanistan in the last couple of months could have stood in the way of this force if the 300,000 string Afghan army collapsed so fast. Sure they could have caused a lot of damage to the Taliban, but it seems the only thing that stopped the Taliban from taking over earlier is that they did not want to fight the USA. Probably because that might have forced the USA to send in more troops and the fight would have continue.

It is horrible to see the people who need to flee their home and who are scared to death from what will happen now. It is horrible to imagine what will happen to the people who helped the Americans and would happen to the women and girls who just want to live a relatively normal life.

And what could/should "The West" do? (and do we include South Korea, Taiwan and Japan in this "West"?)

People compare the situation to Vietnam. There, as I understand the South Vietnamese were fighting for 2 years after the US troops left and before they lost the war. Here the Afghan troops hardly did anything in the last 2 weeks. They just let the Taliban march in.

It is awful to see the pictures, but we need to also remember that the same thing goes on in many other areas in the world that does not have such media-coverage. Here too this will disappear from the news soon. The world will move on to some other disaster where they can get better pictures.

The US could have kept their army there. It would have cost a ton of money for them and probably the life of quite a few Americans. Can anyone expect them to pay that price? Just because they have paid the price for 20 years? Are the people who expect the US to protect the Afghani the same who also complain about the US intervention in other countries?

What does this whole thing mean to us. Other nations in the Middle East? Can we always rely on the USA? Do we have to make sure we can protect ourselves?