>>Obviously, Terrorists have won.

Speaking specifically of 9/11, no, not really. Bin Laden's stated goal was to commit such a crime on American soil that every average American will have to look up Al Queda, find out why they attacked America, and in the process discover all the attrocities comitted by American military and then finally and hopefully turn against their own government.

Obviously, none of the above happened - American government used the attacks as a pretext to spend another trillion dollars on a pointless war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and then used them again at home to remove private liberties and introduce laws that would have had no chance otherwise. I'd argue the average American never bothered looking up why US was attacked beyond a "brown people hate freedom brrrrrrrrrr" nonsense.

So no, terrorists didn't win. They failed at their stated goals miserably, but the world's population still lost as the noose of global surveilence is getting tighter and tighter every year.

> American soil that every average American will have to look up Al Queda, find out why they attacked America, and in the process discover all the attrocities comitted by American military

The way you put it, It looks like Al Queda had a noble goal. It's a shame that they did not win then.

But I am more cynical than that, I don't believe in the idealistic goals of these organisations. In my opinion, all local warlords fight for power, glory and spreading their influence.

Looking at the final situation, I would say that they achieved exactly that. Globalism is dead, the liberal culture of the west is significantly degraded thus cementing their influence in the region. Their power is now much less contested and they can rule happily thereafter.

The thing is, I have absolutely no idea how you can read my comment and think I'm defending the group or even that their goals were noble. It's bending the intepretation of what I said so much it hurts.

Maybe let me try again - terrorist group says their goal is X. Terrorist group fails to achieve goal X. Therefore, terrorists didn't "win", by their own definition of winning.

Is that less.....offensive?

I'm not trying to misread you. On reflection, "letting the terrorists win" is a really loaded phrase. So loaded you might be on the same side of an issue and still misunderstand where someone's coming from. As a guy who participated in sometimes violent protests against the Patriot Act, and our initial lockdown and our invasion of Iraq and the general warlike stance in NYC after 9/11, our interpretation of the terrorists "winning" was that they could put America into a posture where we lost our civil liberties as a result of the fear they were able to inculcate in in the populace. Now, at the time, Bush said if we stopped shopping or you know, otherwise engaging in mass capitalist idiocy, that would mean the terrorists won. To me, they won, because they saw a weakness in our free society where by a careful application of very directed force they could open the dam for totalitarian control and a breakdown of open, free, liberal democracy. By that measure, they succeeded remarkably well, but they really only had to use our own inertia against us.

So I don't mean to misread you. I think our society as it stood was a lot more noble than the Taliban. In some ways it still is. They have brought us down a bit toward their level, and that's something worth fighting against.

The terrorists have - on a shoestring budget no less - done more harm to the USA, it's standing in the world and its ability to do business than many years of cold war between the USA and the USSR have done. They succeeded wildly beyond their - and probably anybody else's - imagination and the damage they did is felt every day, including the increased polarization in the United States which is having its effect as we speak.

Denying this is closing your eyes to some major problems and as long as you deny something you are categorically unable to fix it.

> including the increased polarization in the United States which is having its effect as we speak.

The increased polarization in the United States is a product of the end in the mid-1990s of the overlapping pair of partisan realignments starting just before WWII and a return to the normal condition encouraged by the US electoral structure of a strong, stable, sharp partisan divide, combined with modern mass media technology.

The 2001 terror attacks are coincidental, not a cause.

Denying this is closing your eyes to major structural problems with the political system in the United States and, as long as you deny something, you are categorically unable to fix it.

You are completely entitled to your own opinion, but personally I believe that the 2001 attacks accelerated the divide to the point that it may have made the difference between Trump getting elected or not. Without the Iraq war a whole pile of stuff that laid the ground for Trump would not have happened.

We agree that this was already happening prior to 2001, but I simply doubt it would have resulted in the extreme situation that we have today. Social media, similarly is an accelerator, not a cause.

So they'll win when Hollywood makes a movie that portrays them as noble savages? I'd say they certainly did a great deal of damage to our basic freedoms, not to mention sense of self. We were right to go into Afghanistan. And right to kill Bin Laden. We weren't right to use it as a pretext to degrade our own democracy.

We are pretty aware of what’s going on in Afghanistan. It’s been on the front page of every major news site for the last however many weeks.

But I’m not sure why. Are they trying to make me think that leaving Afghanistan is bad for America? I think it’s good. Time to stop spending money there. Trump and Biden are right to leave.

Surprising that even media outlets like the NYT seem to be writing doom and gloom about leaving. Biden just not be making globalists very happy with this.

The US is leaving the Afghan government without means to defend itself, after spending two decades there de facto in control.

So it's a huge mess, where they've been in control more or less, but they've failed to make the transition into a local civilian state into a stable one.

The offshoot of this is a wave of refugees that will engulf the neighboring countries, decreasing political stability in the Eurasian area.

This is a clear message to all governments - "Washington can no longer be trusted, it's a game of each for his own sovereignty now on".

I'm not saying US should be the guarantor of world piece, but this unmitigated disaster of immediate retreat is causing diminishing of political capital for Washington. It won't be considered as a dependable party from now on.

The situation is even more horrific from PR point of view since US helped to empower Taliban in 1980's to retaliate against Soviet forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

> So it's a huge mess, where they've been in control more or less, but they've failed to make the transition into a local civilian state into a stable one.

I think Afghanistan has failed itself. U.S. put a trillion dollars and 20 years into it and it collapsed within a month (at best). At some point you admit failure and move on.

I think the rest of your messaging is confusing. Washington can't be trusted, but we shouldn't be the guarantor of world peace? Should I stay or should I go?

What do you want us to do? Stay in Afghanistan forever? Where and when does it end?

"What do you want us to do? Stay in Afghanistan forever? Where and when does it end?"

Like I said, I don't want Washington to do anything. I'm a disinterested observer.

I can be a disinterested observer while saying something is an objective failure. It does not mean necessarily that there might have been any other outcome, or that I was rooting for some other particular policy.

> Stay in Afghanistan forever?

It's either that or don't go there in the first place. Afghanistan has been cynically used by world powers over and over again to get at each other and as a convenient battle field. Leaving it to the Taliban will only guarantee another chapter in that series.

I mean it seems like it's just returning back to 2000 before the U.S. and NATO allies invaded. The Taliban ruled then, and they're going to rule again in the future because after 20 years and over a trillion dollars it just didn't work.

And what good does staying do? If we stay we're bad, awful imperialists and playing global police. If we leave we're bad too for letting Afghanistan return to the year 2000. If you're damned either way might as well save money. Maybe the EU can step up and commit resources and money and prevent this outcome you're describing. Why does America have to do it?

I think most Americans hold this viewpoint too. If you don't like it, I think it might be beneficial to go back and look at the years of "America in Afghanistan bad" international press. No wonder Americans said "fuck it we're done".

Funny enough the more controversial war (Iraq) seems to have brought about the more successful long-term change. U.S. forces are effectively out and the Iraqi government is running Iraq. Would be great if the Iranians would stop meddling but is what it is.

No, this is much worse because now the Taliban will end up much more powerful than they ever were prior to 2000. This will have no end of consequences and all of them negative.

> No, this is much worse because now the Taliban will end up much more powerful than they ever were prior to 2000.

In what specific ways?

The populace has learned that the Taliban are the winners, when before they were just another contender, besides that they are now better armed and are able to claim victory over the United States which serves as a tremendous recruiting poster.

Well they did win. They beat the U.S. just as they beat others. We spent too much money and time. 20 years and a trillion dollars. Iraq was able to form a government. The Afghani people just didn’t have the ability to do it with our help (or we failed at helping enough). We lost. Time to go home.

>> Are they trying to make me think that leaving Afghanistan is bad for America?

No man, this is what's wrong with Americans who believe in Trump. "They" are not "trying to make" you "think" something. It's just the fucking news. Turn on France24 or Al Jazeera or BBC - you're not their audience. They're covering the fall of a new city in Afghanistan every day.

There is some psychosis among Americans who spend too much time online where you think every piece of news must be slanted bullshit trying to win an infowar on your brain. It's not. This is pure fucking cause and effect. America pulled out, which we wanted, and now the Taliban is going to massacre a lot of women and children, which America doesn't give a rat's ass about. That's the situation.

No one cares if they convince you or Joe Biden or America. This is just what's happening. For my 2 cents, I don't think we should have left before we eliminated the Taliban.

> No man, this is what's wrong with Americans who believe in Trump.

Don't want to do a back and forth here, but do want to make it clear I don't "believe" in any president. I certainly didn't vote for Trump in either election. He can be right about some things even if he's almost universally wrong on policies according to my own views.

> "They" are not "trying to make" you "think" something. It's just the fucking news. Turn on France24 or Al Jazeera or BBC - you're not their audience. They're covering the fall of a new city in Afghanistan every day.

But they're covering it with an opinion "America should do something", "this is bad", etc. Which is fine to have I guess, but that's the same spirit that got us in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Which is the point of my comment.

I mean, I think they're covering it with the opinion of "why the fuck would you fight a 20 year war and just drop the ball completely now," which is fair, considering that when we invaded they were uniformly like "why the fuck is America invading." I want to strongly separate Iraq from Afghanistan in this, because there was absolutely no reason for us to invade Iraq or to promote the Arab Spring or any of the other absurd things we did post-9/11. These were actually all distractions from and drains upon the mission in Afghanistan. We have an obligation to prevent the Taliban from taking hold there again. And any renewal of their power directly impacts our security. We had no moral right to withdraw, and Biden did it as fast as he could just because it was popular. I understand why it was popular, but that doesn't make it right for us or the people who are trapped there. It makes us look weak and it destroys the hope that people around the world place in us. For better or worse, we are the only power capable of holding back the forces of chaos around the world, and that is where we put our footprint because these specific people, the Taliban aided and abetted an attack on our civilian population. We should never make peace with them, because they have no concept of peace. They will attack us at the first opportunity.

I predict within a couple months they will execute American hostages and we will have to return to Afghanistan. It may be something like Carter's self-immolation in Iran. If so it will only lead to a more isolationist right-wing regime under Trump or someone else in the US. Isolationism does not work. America is a global power and needs to act as one. Globalism is the future and it shouldn't be controlled by China and Russia while we retreat from it. I'm no neocon or fan of Bush-style pre-emptive strikes. But we're the only ones who have some accountability and the capacity to prevent genocide, and we should do it.

> But we're the only ones who have some accountability

Had. But after all the failures this has eroded quite a bit.

Agreed. But America is still an idea. Many other countries have massacred their indigenous population. Many other countries have enslaved people. Many other countries have fought unjust wars. There's a lot America has to be ashamed of.

And yet America is still a great idea. That's what gives us accountability. That's why we can't retreat from the world into isolationism.

[edit] Just to expand on this, I'm from the immigrant side of America, and the working class side. In other words, I'm not a rich white guy whose family sailed here on the Mayflower, and I'm not someone with "white privilege" or whatever. This is the place you go if you have something you want to build, make, say, do, create, or a freedom you wish to exercise that you cannot exercise in your home country. Now. A lot of old-school right wing Americans think they don't want more immigrants. But without immigrants, America is nothing. The force of change and justice and creative power in America, in my mind, has always been about immigration and the freedom it unleashes in people who were repressed elsewhere in the world. And that is why we have a responsibility to help people, like the people in Kabul right now, who are being crushed by horrific violent forces like the Taliban.

Simplified, there are several groups of people in the United States: immigrants, people that forgot they once were immigrants themselves that want to close the door on others now that they have theirs, people and their descendants that were brought there against their will and Native Americans.

All of these groups have their own idea of what America should stand for and their lack of agreement is materializing in a societal schism that I don't believe can be bridged under a single political system.

And yes, America has a responsibility to Afghanistan, but mostly because they are one of the major forces behind the current mess in the first place.

EU should not allow migrants, it should be the Arab countries that should take them.

Swedish cities are now plagued by massive problems due to the large influx of migrants.

Another wave would destroy any hope of returning to normality in Sweden.

I live in Sweden. There are clear problems with gang violence. But non-immigrant Swedish people don’t encounter that at all in their live; crime mostly stays in the migrant communities. For a long time, crime in migrant communities wasn’t even reported of, because of a wrong idea of political correctness. Now you can see it in the news regularly, but I have yet to know a single Swedish person who is actually affected by any of this.

Sweden surely has a very difficult immigration problem to tackle. But it’s worth noting that it’s the migrants who suffer from this, not the existing Swedish residents.

Glad that it works for you, but there many many news reports about the situation that sounds serious.

Here is an example about shootings:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/fatal-shooting...

The thing is you can't just get the good migrants and those that are bad voids the whole idea.

At least until sufficient harsh laws can curb the problem.

That article underlines my point. There is a significant rise in gang violence. But the people being shot are from the migrant communities, too. I think you may make the mistake of reading “Swedish person killed” and assuming that Swedish person was not an immigrant.

Which isn’t to say it’s not a problem. It’s a huge problem. But it’s also important to keep in mind who’s actually suffering here.

>>EU should not allow migrants, it should be the Arab countries that should take them.

Even though it's the EU countries that have contributed to the plight of people in places like Afganistan and Syria? That's super convenient point of view - very nice way to wash your hands of any responsibility.

And I'm saying this as an EU citizen - every country, including my own, that has participated in military excurisions in the middle east in the last 30 years has created this crisis for themselves. Saying that "oh, arab countries should take them" is beyond brutal, it's barbaric.

> Saying that "oh, arab countries should take them" is beyond brutal, it's barbaric.

It's really not, so it's quite irrational to include that level of hyperbole to make your point emotionally loaded rather than factual.

Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan and Iran - both countries which are a helluva lot more culturally and religiously aligned with the majority of Afghans.

> every country, including my own, that has participated in military excurisions in the middle east in the last 30 years has created this crisis for themselves

This is nonsense. Religious fundamentalism & oppression of the populace has created this situation - both of which were aided & abetted by (you guessed it) Iran & Pakistan. Both countries are the biggest funders of the religious fundamentalists as well as offering state level support and safety for those leaders.

EU simply cannot absorb that many new migrants, that's the truth of it.

Apparently it can. Likely many more. And many more will come. Climate change and all that. If you're looking for static times then you should probably go and invent a time machine, you are headed straight for a period of upheaval, whether you like it or not.

Turkey is not an Arab country and has more than an order of magnitude more refugees per capita(and 5x-8X in absolute terms) than EU. Why would Turkey bear the burden?

Unless you find a way to make UAE etc. take the refugees to achieve the "Arabs take the migrants" goal, prepare for a dramatic increase in immigrants. If it happens that EU decides to fight it back, they will need all the surveillance power and get the rights removed to be able to enforce the restrictions on the movement of millions.

Spot on. GP is completely unrealistic in both worldview and proposed solutions, the EU will quite simply have to learn how to deal with this in a decent manner or it will cease to exist. The ultra-right fringe that uses every opportunity to protect their precious all-white genepool is in for a rough ride.