To want to weep fir the girls in afghanistaan

I said to DH today I’m so afraid for the women in Afghanistan….

I said the same thing to my DH. I have two granddaughters of 12 and 13 and that really brings it home as to how young the poor girls are in Afghanistan.

I am so angry and despair at what we have done. What have all those people died for in the last 20 years and had their limbs blown off for to end up back at the start.
They will be going through that country with a vengeance. It is absolutely terrible. What the hell has it all been about. I feel so angry at Joe Biden.

MayBee70

I said to DH today I’m so afraid for the women in Afghanistan….

And any man that has the courage to speak up for and support the women is not likely to survive.

It took me three attempts to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns"

We have all let that country down and as for their own government and army which is supposed to be protecting them words fail me, it seems they have run for the hills at the first sign of trouble. It is terrifying for the population and such a waste of life of our own soldiers/civilians.

I so agree. It’s utterly tragic and heartbreaking.

Absolutely heartbreaking. I have young granddaughters, what beasts treating little girls like that, I can’t think of it. They never had mothers or sisters.or anyone but themselves, what a vengeful god they worship.., I don’t however, know whether we can police a whole land indefinitely. The people that lost husbands and sons in the conflict, how must they feel.
Don’t mention Joe Biden, couldn’t stand Trump and had high hopes for Joe, what a mistake, nothing matters outside of America.

I absolutely agree OP, seeing a picture of a couple of terrified little girls the other day, when the accompanying article suggested that the Taliban were going from door to door looking for girls as young as 12 to marry off, made me want to cry for them. I have a granddaughter approaching that age and it's so heart breaking to contemplate what sort of futures they may have. I believe magnanimously some Taliban leader said they would allow girls to go to school until 12 then presumably a life of servitude awaits them as wife number whatever, often to a man years older.

Such an awful regressive way of life and set of beliefs. Shockingly the same man also said that adultery will be punished by stoning. The patriarchy at its very worst, just why do these men think they can sit in judgement of their fellow human beings, and impose such a harsh way of life and punishments on them As always it's the women and girls that will suffer the most.

This post in some way answers a previous post about Afghanistan questioning whether the West's military interference was worth it; the answer has to be yes, but at great cost to America and Britain but not many other countries.
The Taliban's barbaric beliefs remain unaltered, and I wonder what causes the hatred they feel towards women, and their terror of female influence, that makes them subdue them in this way.
I am also appalled at Joe Biden's actions: lack of preparation for the withdrawal, immediate removal of support and his apparent indifference to the plight of Afghanistan.

I well-up when i see/read about those poor souls.
What a horrible situation to be/live in.
I don`t know what can be done to stop it, but something should be done.
A barbaric ignorant bunch,........id`e say men,but they are far from it.

Biden wants all his troops home before 9/11 and then it will be fortress America all the way. They are no longer interested in securing the hearts and minds of people in faraway places with strange sounding names. We can’t stay as we are too few to go it alone and need their infrastructure. So once we have all our people out it’s game over. There will be no doubt be special forces there keeping an eye on the rise of insurgent groups but that’s about it. Back to the dark ages. What a mess.

Some years ago I heard a lady giving a talk to the Surrey Federation of WI's on textiles. She had a display of some beautiful pieces of work. The colours were so vibrant and the stitching exquisite. She asked us where in the world did we think this work had come from. Nobody was correct because this work had been done in secret by women and young girls in Afghanistan. With help from other countries they had established a market for their products. The money made was used to build a school for girls which was promptly burnt down by the Taliban.

Rory Stewart:
Too many commentators are blaming the Afghan government/people. This is on us. We did not need to leave so recklessly and suddenly. US and NATO air support was vital, relatively low risk, and sustainable. We could and should have continued support. We are betraying Afghanistan.

Only 2, 500 troops there, low level strategic support.

We did not have to follow the USA out like idiot lapdogs.
Also, Trump started pulling the troops out and many Americans loved that. Biden should have stopped but he knew it would be unpopular.... well, I wonder if it will be unpopular now!
We should have got UN and Nato together and "filled in" for America.

Horrendous.

Absolutely heartbreaking. The absolute terror the parents of those young girls must be living through every day must be awful. They must dread the door bursting open and seeing their little girls being taken from them.
If there is a true God why would he let this happen to innocent people.
We must go back to try to help them. Evil must not be allowed to taken over and esculate throughout the world.

If there is a true God why would he let this happen to innocent people. Apparently it is all god's will - in the Koran i'nnit?

I can barely watch any of it on the news ... - it is a huge tragedy. Those poor poor people.

I know it's probably pointless but I've written to my MP to urge we go back.

I think it's disgraceful that we have made this mess and run away.
Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.

Gouging out a woman’s eyes in front of her husband and family. Murdering young men in evil ways just for listening to pop music. Going house to house searching for unmarried women aged 12-45. Killing a man for being an engineer ie educated. I could cry thinking that this terror is happening a plane flight away.

I can’t begin to imagine the terror and sheer helplessness these people must be feeling. It seems like a cancer on humanity that, no matter how many times it’s cut out, keeps returning.

May God - any God - help them.

Notspaghetti Colonel Bob Stewart MP (who served in Afghanistan and lost members of his regiment there) said this morning that at the rate the UN move on anything there is simply no time for consultation. And as for NATO, the Americans have and always will, called the shots so it’s not likely that other NATO nations would make a move without them.

Absolutely heartbreaking and it's only an accident of birth that we, our daughters and granddaughters ate not in this nightmare.
How about if every gran on GN donated to eg Save The Children or one of the charities specifically set up to help girls and women in these countries?

I don't think the outlook for young boys is any brighter.

Such a rapid re-emergence of the Taliban wasn't predicted and I've seen no reports saying it should have soon. Blaming is pointless. Better to concentrate on what to do now. For a start, much humanitarian aid and proper preparation and help for large numbers of refugees.

This situation does not just affect Afghanistan, there are already people massing on the Pakistani border trying to flee the Taliban. There will be hundreds of thousands of refugees, and they will be the lucky ones those left behind will be in a living hell.

I am against wars, but how can the rest of the world stand by and be witness to these atrocities and be able to sleep at night.

(Our eldest AC is a serving Officer, and he has commented that the only solution is to have permanent bases, preferably under the NATO flag as the native Afghans have neither the will or fire power to protect its citizens)

There will now be permanent civil war on top of all the atrocities.

This is entirely down to Trump’s agreement with the Taliban to withdraw US troops by 2021. May I think.

Not a single member of the Afghan government was a signatory to that agreement.

There is no way that the U.K. could remain in Afghanistan without the USA, we simple do not have the power.

This unspeakable situation is entirely down to Trump.

From what I understand neither NATO or the UN have any appetite at all to fill in where the Americans have left. We obviously can't on our own, so no help from obvious allies.
U.V.der Leyen ,has apparently threatened that the EU will ostracise the Afghanistan if the Taliban set up a murderous government! Well, there's a terrifying thought and should do the trick for sure!! What is this woman like? Does she not understand that these people don't give a fig about the EU or the West, and that as a woman she is lower than a snakes belly in Taliban society. What with that attitude and America first under Biden , these poor , poor people have a very bleak outlook indeed.

Biden could easily have countermanded Trumps agreement and at least stalled the withdrawal. He is as guilty as Trump if not more so.