The Big Middle Eastern Thread

[Azeem]

16 hours ago, Waylander said:

I think we need to understand without the Opium Afghanistan is a poor country, so the Taliban will get support form Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

People are still projecting the 90s civil war in Afghanistan, who backed who who and overly implying it in present situation.

I don't know if people are noticing but Saudi Arabia has been irrelevant in these affairs for a long time now. Taliban have opened their office in Qatar since 2010 how many talks/meetings even in back channel with the Saudis? None but they have met Chinese, Russians, Qatari, Turkish and even Iranians officials many times. 

Yes in the past Taliban didn't cared who recognised their rule they thought they could deal with the rest of the world through these three countries Saudi, Pakistan and UAE. But remember when US launched their war against them all these countries sided with US, a major blow for Taliban.

This is something Taliban may or may not have forgotten. If you read journalists who've met Taliban leaders, they despise the political/military establishment of these countries after that episode.

[Azeem]

Ahmed Masoud has made peace with Taliban and surrendered Panjshir. 

Edit - Not confirmed 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Khan of TF365

[Spike]

 

9 hours ago, Tommy said:

Saw the story of a German-Afghan trying to get out of Kabul. He knew that most Taliban are dyslexic, so when they stopped and questioned him, he just held up a red book and said that he's a German diplomat and has to return to Germany. They actually believed him and waved him through. What a man. 

Dyslexia is a learning disability, I think you mean illiterate, mate!

Edited August 21, 2021 by Spike

[Tommy]

46 minutes ago, Spike said:

 

Dyslexia is a learning disability, I think you mean illiterate, mate!

Yea I'm sorry. English is not my native language. 

[Spike]

1 minute ago, Tommy said:

Yea I'm sorry. English is not my native language. 

It will be when I'm through with you.

[Spike]

One month.

 

[Azeem]

7 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Yea I'm sorry. English is not my native language. 

GIFs are your native language

[Tommy]

Just now, Khan of TF365 said:

GIFs are your native language

[Spike]

https://lingojam.com/EnglishtoAustralian

[Waylander]

21 hours ago, Khan of TF365 said:

People are still projecting the 90s civil war in Afghanistan, who backed who who and overly implying it in present situation.

I don't know if people are noticing but Saudi Arabia has been irrelevant in these affairs for a long time now. Taliban have opened their office in Qatar since 2010 how many talks/meetings even in back channel with the Saudis? None but they have met Chinese, Russians, Qatari, Turkish and even Iranians officials many times. 

Yes in the past Taliban didn't cared who recognised their rule they thought they could deal with the rest of the world through these three countries Saudi, Pakistan and UAE. But remember when US launched their war against them all these countries sided with US, a major blow for Taliban.

This is something Taliban may or may not have forgotten. If you read journalists who've met Taliban leaders, they despise the political/military establishment of these countries after that episode.

For me they will having been getting supplies, heavy machine guns, RPGs, mortars as well as small arms. Other things like vehicles and radios.

Someone has been supplying the funds to buy these or the Taliban have been raising through terrorist activity like kidnappings and ransoms or taxes from businesses or wealthy individuals under their control.

Assuming the Taliban have been getting financial aid, I expect it will be done covertly certainly not publicised.

Your Massoud post is intriguing, if he does decide to withdraw or work with the Taliban his treatment will be interesting.

[Azeem]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/22/learned-taliban-will-fund-decades-studying-afghanistans-opium/

It's demanding subscription can't read it fully Booo ! Took this screenshot scrolling quickly before pop up came. 

The whole Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan border triangle is a major source of legal and illegal trade. Taliban captured billions worth of local currency after capturing one border crossing from Afghan forces 

 

[Stan]

 

[Azeem]

16 minutes ago, Stan said:

 

More funny was some media outlets picked it as Taliban dancing after victory when it's actually from a wedding.

[Dr. Gonzo]

It's gotta be a sad moment for any "journalist" when the Taliban spokesperson seems more grounded in reality than you...

... this ignores that pretty much any member of my family still in Iran would jump at the chance to get the fuck out of Iran and into a western country, with some semblance of stability and where people at least act like they care about rampant government corruption more than they do in Iran 

People may not like Western governments very much (and tbh, I think citizens of Western countries - myself included - should be demanding more and better of our political leaders, because their mistakes have consequences for us and for people all around the world)... but people would very much trade living under a corrupt and theocratic dictatorship for life in the West. It's just easier to have a normal life in the West and people are well aware of this.

Stupid comment from Press TV or whoever the fuck it was.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Also, I don't think the reports of Massoud surrendering the Panjshir Valley are true. Mostly because of this: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/23/the-two-men-challenging-the-taliban-in-afghanistan

[Azeem]

6 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Also, I don't think the reports of Massoud surrendering the Panjshir Valley are true. Mostly because of this: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/23/the-two-men-challenging-the-taliban-in-afghanistan

I think negotiations will keep going along with occasional clashes with minimal damage for 2-3 months.

Taliban know if they use brute force it will hamper their hope of getting international recognition while Massoud Jr. is also not in the position his father was in the 90s, his supply routes are not intact unlike last time and Russia Iran who fully supported Norther Alliance last time seem to be on terms with Taliban this time. 

[Azeem]

 

[Inverted]

On 21/08/2021 at 18:37, Spike said:

 

Dyslexia is a learning disability, I think you mean illiterate, mate!

Plus, even if they can read Pashto or Persian, those are written in different scripts to Latin-alphabet languages like German. I'd guess there's a lot of well educated Afghans probably can't read anything in Latin script, even if they are literate in several other languages.

There are a lot of people in the West who can speak a few languages, but who would be completely lost if you held up some writing in Cyrillic or Arabic script.

[Azeem]

Speaking of Taliban and literacy Did anyone saw that English interview of Taliban representative on Al Jazeera? No amount of education can give you the accent which he had. Makes wonder if he was raised outside Afghanistan possibly in England or elsewhere if so how many of them are in this category.

[Reluctant Striker]

On 23/08/2021 at 19:08, Dr. Gonzo said:

It's gotta be a sad moment for any "journalist" when the Taliban spokesperson seems more grounded in reality than you...

... this ignores that pretty much any member of my family still in Iran would jump at the chance to get the fuck out of Iran and into a western country, with some semblance of stability and where people at least act like they care about rampant government corruption more than they do in Iran 

People may not like Western governments very much (and tbh, I think citizens of Western countries - myself included - should be demanding more and better of our political leaders, because their mistakes have consequences for us and for people all around the world)... but people would very much trade living under a corrupt and theocratic dictatorship for life in the West. It's just easier to have a normal life in the West and people are well aware of this.

Stupid comment from Press TV or whoever the fuck it was.

It seems a very double edged conversation.

My experience is a significant portion of British muslims (and probably gloabally) were against the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan from the start.

Joe Biden was quoted as saying the people themselves need to want to fight. I don't think they do. I suspect many of the none terrorist ones are feeling fairly content right now.

[Waylander]

This link albeit from Russian media suggests the Taliban are being pushed out of a few areas north of Kabul

https://www.rt.com/news/532708-anti-taliban-resistance-afghansitan-baghlan/

 

 

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Reluctant Striker said:

It seems a very double edged conversation.

My experience is a significant portion of British muslims (and probably gloabally) were against the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan from the start.

Joe Biden was quoted as saying the people themselves need to want to fight. I don't think they do. I suspect many of the none terrorist ones are feeling fairly content right now.

As someone British & half Middle Eastern (I'm not Muslim, but my grandparents on one side of my family are... so while that side of family became irreligious/non-religious) - I think your experiences are accurate regarding British Muslims/Brits of Middle Eastern descent being against those wars.

And honestly, maybe my reading of the general sentiment was skewed as someone whos been part of the UK Middle Eastern community and someone on Merseyside... but I felt in Britain generally, at least at the time of the Iraq war (tbh, I think many people thought the US's intervention in Afghanistan to retaliate to that terror attack was justifiable... initially) were pretty strongly against us joining the US in Iraq. It felt like a very unpopular move by the government.

I think the biggest issue in Afghanistan is the US & allied mission changed once boots were on the ground. The mission no longer became a matter of i.) catching and killing Bin Laden; ii.) rooting Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan; iii.) weakening the Taliban to ensure they wouldn't back global terrorists again - it became a matter of "nation building."

And I don't think you can really "nation build" in Afghanistan without an excruciating long occupation that'd make the recent 20 year stay in the country seem insignificant. And if that was and is unpalatable to the US/UK/whoever else allied with the US that was there... then we really should have gotten out earlier. The two best times to withdraw would have been: 1.) when the Taliban offered surrender and Rumsfeld & Bush said no; 2.) after Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

But I don't think you're 100% right... if you're not in the Taliban or a warlord that stands to gain from the resumption of civil war that was paused for 20 years... you're probably a million miles from being content if you're an Afghan right now. Especially if you're not Pashtun or worked with the US/allies, because then you've likely got a target on your back - those are who the Taliban will go after next. And any woman in Afghanistan is facing a severe rollback of their rights.

This is a bad time to be an "ordinary" Afghan if you're in Afghanistan.

And that's why I think that interview with the Taliban spokeperson and Iran's Press TV is strange/amusing because the Taliban spokesperson seems way more grounded in reality than the Iranian propagandist (although maybe I shouldn't be surprised by that ) - the Taliban spokesperson seems to recognise that when given the opportunity to get the fuck out of Afghanistan right now, Afghans are taking the opportunity to leave the Taliban and their oppression. The Iranian guy saying "This wouldn't happen in Iran" is ignoring that shitloads of Iranians that live under maybe less repression that Afghans face under the Taliban... but similar repression itself... want to get the fuck away from their government's rule and into the West.

That's literally how my mum and uncles ended up in the UK and how I've got Iranian family scattered all throughout Europe now... and why the members of my family who are still there are desperate to get the fuck out by any means they can.

But what's happening in Afghanistan is sort of us dealing with the US's foreign policy coming round to bite them in the arse again. They bare a lot of responsibility for the existence of the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) in the first place... and honestly, so many of the issues with stability and peace in the region can be traced back to some really really really shit decisions the US and/or the UK made during the Cold War.

As citizens of Western countries and as participants in free western elections... we should be asking more of our elected officials who are representing us and who's policy mistakes lead to chaos that we then have to deal with in the future. We're privileged to live in democratic countries where we have a huge amount of freedom and political choice compared to other people. Sadly, I don't think it'll ever happen though because to most people in the West... the policy decisions made for the Middle East are so far removed from so many of them and we have a whole host of our own issues at home to worry about.

And that's without even taking into account how partisan politics has become and how many people treat politics like supporting a football team. But imo, anyone living in the West that's concerned with stability or peace in the Middle East (and a part of that is stopping the spread of Islamic extremism, which does impact us outside the Middle East as well) should be asking for more accountability from our political leaders & should care about what the fuck sorts of foreign policy decisions we make.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Here’s some fun footage of Evin security guards learning they’ve been hacked: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/5dbemq/video-iranian-evin-prison-hacked

The video the hackers released I’ve watched and I’m not going to post on here because some parts are pretty disturbing.

In any case, I am all the more happy for the world to be more aware of the human rights abuses in Evin. What the hacked CCTV footage doesn’t show is the torture and sexual abuse of political prisoners, so just know what you can see isn’t even close to the worst of what goes on there. It’s an awful place and it’s more evidence of why Iran’s government are absolute scum.

[Waylander]

Another RT article on resistance to the Taliban. Alleging that former Afghan officials and soldiers that did not surrender to the Taliban have joined Massoud's group in Panshir.

Despite this Russian sources do not think this will be enough to stop the Taliban.

https://www.rt.com/news/532764-afghanistan-panjshir-northern-alliance/

 

[carefreeluke]

Do other countries also have an obligation?

Should they adopt a strict or open policy?  Should countries take in as many as they can?

Discuss.