Current events in Afghanistan

[najaB]

And in the absence of any worthwhile opposition people keep bloody voting for them over and over. Argh.

Thing is, our FPTP electoral system allows them to stay in power despite receiving the minority of the overall vote.

 

[nlogax]

Properly dodged a bullet there.

The power of bacon sandwiches, right there.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Thing is, our FPTP electoral system allows them to stay in power despite receiving the minority of the overall vote.

The problem is that other parties receive even less of a percentage of the overall vote than the one forming the Government.

 

[Typhoon]

Watching Dominic Raab getting slapped about by the Foreign Affairs Committee. It's simultaneously entertaining and depressing as hell. The sheer incompetence and disinterest evident from Raab..yikes.

He is unfortunate that Tom Tugendhat is the chair; not only does he know the area well (having served there), is critical of government policy and has personal interest in the safety of some of the Afghans but he is said to have leadership ambitions, appears to think highly of his own ability* and probably thinks that he would have done a better job than Raab. His style of questioning helps him to keep the 'witness' focused. I didn't watch it all but Chris Bryant also seemed to be pretty effective, a couple of the Tories weren't exactly sympathetic in their questioning, either.

Tugendhat has already lined up round two. Maybe Raab will get beyond using stock phrases but I doubt it.

* - Johnson probably also has a high opinion of his ability, that is why he will get nowhere near the cabinet. He is not the sort to sit around the cabinet table chanting how many hospitals they are going to build.

 

[DarloRich]

Watching Dominic Raab getting slapped about by the Foreign Affairs Committee. It's simultaneously entertaining and depressing as hell. The sheer incompetence and disinterest evident from Raab..yikes.

It was awful. The man is not fit to do the filing at the Foreign Office let alone "lead" it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

What visits is Domenic Raab scheduled to make in the next few days and with whom?

Incidentally, noting what the Taleban had to say on the matter of women not holding any senior role in their new Government, but only junior roles, it would be interesting to see how they would have come to terms with Lisa Nandy in her high role should the Labour Party have been in office.

 

[Typhoon]

• SEPTEMBER
• 1
• DOMINIC RAAB TROTS OUT COPY-AND-PASTE PHRASES IN ATTEMPT TO SHIFT BLAME OVER AFGHANISTAN – THE GUARDIAN

Says it all!

Incidentally, noting what the Taleban had to say on the matter of women not holding any senior role in their new Government, but only junior roles, it would be interesting to see how they would have come to terms with Lisa Nandy in her high role should the Labour Party have been in office.

I think even that is an advance. We also need to remember that it is less than one hundred years ago since we first had a woman minister.

 

[DarloRich]

What visits is Domenic Raab scheduled to make in the next few days and with whom

Who cares? It is a day late and dollar short as they say. Although he could call in at Crete and see if the sea has reopened for business.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I think even that is an advance. We also need to remember that it is less than one hundred years ago since we first had a woman minister.

That matter, whilst something to do with this country, does not answer my question on how the Taleban would have reacted to Lisa Nandy, being a woman in a very high post of state should there have been a Labour government in power.

 

[najaB]

That matter, whilst something to do with this country, does not answer my question on how the Taleban would have reacted to Lisa Nandy, being a woman in a very high post of state should there have been a Labour government in power.

Since she would have been a minister in HM Government rather than that of Afghanistan, one imagines they would have had very little to say about it, and additionally could not care less had they not.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Who cares? It is a day late and dollar short as they say. Although he could call in at Crete and see if the sea has reopened for business.

That being the case, will any other member of the cabinet be nominated to hold discussions in Doha with the Taleban. From what you intimate, is Domenic Raab no longer the holder of the high post that he had held recently? I am somewhat out of touch with the world at present, owing to matters medical concerning my elderly wife in her nursing home and I am trying to catch up with events.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That being the case, will any other member of the cabinet be nominated to hold discussions in Doha with the Taleban. From what you intimate, is Domenic Raab no longer the holder of the high post that he had held recently? I am somewhat out of touch with the world at present, owing to matters medical concerning my elderly wife in her nursing home and I am trying to catch up with events.

I'm speculating here, but my best guess is that those discussions would be conducted on the UK side entirely by civil servants and negotiation specialists. I very much doubt that the UK Government would want to send any Government minister to directly negotiate with the Taleban, because that would give the appearance of lending legitimacy to them as a Government, which I'm sure we would be trying to avoid. Any travelling that Dominic Raab does (other than holidays ) will more likely be in order to consult with other Governments on our response to the situation.

 

[DarloRich]

That being the case, will any other member of the cabinet be nominated to hold discussions in Doha with the Taleban. From what you intimate, is Domenic Raab no longer the holder of the high post that he had held recently?

Don't be silly. Raab is, sadly for us, still the Foreign Secretary despite being shown to be utterly incompetent, lazy and disinterested more than once. Any talks he holds now are merely for PR consumption and deflection. They should have taken place weeks and months ago.

Raab is the worst FS I can recall in the worst government I can recall under the worst PM I can recall.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Don't be silly. Raab is, sadly for us, still the Foreign Secretary despite being shown to be utterly incompetent, lazy and disinterested more than once. Any talks he holds now are merely for PR consumption and deflection. They should have taken place weeks and months ago.

You raise an interesting point here about the time period of the talks. When the previous Government in Afghanistan were in power, would it surely have been the Americans who would be the prime mover in such talks. Did Trump not hold meetings with a senior personage in the Taleban....or am I mistaken in that assumption.
Britain is just a minor international stage role player in comparison with the Americans, however as much our resident Old Etonians would have us believe to be the opposite.

 

[DarloRich]

Britain is just a minor international stage role player in comparison with the Americans, however as much our resident Old Etonians would have us believe to be the opposite.

We have a responsibility to our citizens and to those selected people who worked in our national interests. We shouldn't be scrabbling around in the last days and hours trying to get people out. We should have had it all worked out and complete months in advance. That we didn't is because we are led by lazy incompetents unfit for command.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

We have a responsibility to our citizens and to those selected people who worked in our national interests. We shouldn't be scrabbling around in the last days and hours trying to get people out. We should have had it all worked out and complete months in advance. That we didn't is because we are led by lazy incompetents unfit for command.

Let us put our respective cards on the table. For the last twenty years, the Governments of the coalition forces spent an incalcuable amount of currency in training and equipping the Afghani armed forces, not just for a short period of years. It was those same Afghani armed forces who capitulated in such a very short period of time when the final Taleban offensive occurred. If you wish to attach blame, it should be laid fairly and squarely on the military intelligence departments of all coalition countries, who even the Americans now claim to be incompetent in passing such military intelligence onto their respective government departments.

 

[nlogax]

I am somewhat out of touch with the world at present,

I wouldn't worry - you're still far more in touch with current events than Raab appears to be.

 

[43096]

Raab is the worst FS I can recall in the worst government I can recall under the worst PM I can recall.

You must have a short memory, as the current PM was Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s government.

 

[DarloRich]

You must have a short memory, as the current PM was Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s government.

traumatic amnesia!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Raab is, sadly for us, still the Foreign Secretary despite being shown to be utterly incompetent, lazy and disinterested more than once. Any talks he holds now are merely for PR consumption and deflection.

If you know this about any coming talks due to being scheduled by the British Foreign Secretary to be true, so will any high-level foreign deputation that he is scheduled to be meeting and they will not wish to be seen as taken for fools. They will immediately cancel any such meeting and the matter then is certain to be a news item on the Russia Today TV news channel, who take delight in the reporting of such faux pas.

 

[DarloRich]

If you know this about any coming talks due to being scheduled by the British Foreign Secretary be true, so will any high-level foreign deputation that he is scheduled to be meeting and they will not wish to be seen as taken for fools. They will immediately cancel any such meeting and the matter then is certain to be a news item on the Russia Today TV news channel, who take delight in the reporting of such faux pas.

what are you on about?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Don't be silly. Raab is, sadly for us, still the Foreign Secretary despite being shown to be utterly incompetent, lazy and disinterested more than once. Any talks he holds now are merely for PR consumption and deflection.

The talks that I referred to are those in the emboldened section of your very own posting shown above.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm speculating here, but my best guess is that those discussions would be conducted on the UK side entirely by civil servants and negotiation specialists. I very much doubt that the UK Government would want to send any Government minister to directly negotiate with the Taleban, because that would give the appearance of lending legitimacy to them as a Government, which I'm sure we would be trying to avoid. Any travelling that Dominic Raab does (other than holidays ) will more likely be in order to consult with other Governments on our response to the situation.

Certain people in the British government might be very keen to send Raab over to negotiate with the Taleban. If he gets taken hostage they will just say they don't want him back.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Certain people in the British government who might be very keen to send Raab over to negotiate with the Taleban. If he gets taken hostage they will just say they don't want him back.

Especially those Old Etonians holding Government posts, as Domenic Raab did not attend those hallowed halls, but that of Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham.

 

[Typhoon]

You must have a short memory, as the current PM was Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s government.

Drifting a bit from the thread. May compensated for Johnson's incompetence by ensuring that the Foreign Office had a supply of at least fairly able ministers who had some background in foreign affairs, the likes of Alan Duncan, Alistair Burt, Rory Stewart, Tobias Ellwood, Baroness Anelay. Most, if at all, being remainers. These days, the junior minister who is rolled out from the Foreign Office is James Cleverly, who held several posts when Johnson was Mayor of London and seems about as clued up as Raab.
Whilst civil servants do all the hard work, ministers do establish relationships with their equivalents in other countries. Johnson at least had the bonhomie if not the attention to detail and his ministers had the knowledge, experience and ability to be able to attempt to smooth the track that Johnson may have churned up.
I am not saying that Johnson was better than Raab, it is like comparing 'dire' with 'dreadful' but the Johnson team was better than the Raab team.

I've noticed that 'In the thick of it' (Duncan's account of Johnson at the Foreign Office) is in my local library; I am looking forward to hours of entertaining reading!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I have, in my long life, seen Shadow Ministers have the most plausible reasons as why if in Governmental office they would do things far better than the Government incumbent, yet, strange to believe, when their party takes office, they also have the most plausible reasons why their Government is not carrying out those promised betterments.....

 

[Spamcan81]

Let us put our respective cards on the table. For the last twenty years, the Governments of the coalition forces spent an incalcuable amount of currency in training and equipping the Afghani armed forces, not just for a short period of years. It was those same Afghani armed forces who capitulated in such a very short period of time when the final Taleban offensive occurred. If you wish to attach blame, it should be laid fairly and squarely on the military intelligence departments of all coalition countries, who even the Americans now claim to be incompetent in passing such military intelligence onto their respective government departments.

Once the US withdrew air support for the Afghan forces it was only going to end one way. The best western troops needed close air support from some of the most capable air forces in the world to hold back a fearless and determined enemy. Without that support the Afghan army was always facing an uphill struggle.

 

[Gostav]

Once the US withdrew air support for the Afghan forces it was only going to end one way. The best western troops needed close air support from some of the most capable air forces in the world to hold back a fearless and determined enemy. Without that support the Afghan army was always facing an uphill struggle.

About air support, a important turning point of Afghanistan was that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2012_raid_on_Camp_Bastion

destroyed or severely damaged eight U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers and a United States Air Force C-130

Very few media reported this raid, that is the first time a complete squadron of attack aircraft was destroyed by Taliban. This is a signal that the Coalition forces can no longer bear such a loss and the leadership has really started to prepare for withdrawal from then, because they know it is impossible to win.

 

[najaB]

Very few media reported this raid, that is the first time a complete squadron of attack aircraft was destroyed by Taliban. This is a signal that the Coalition forces can no longer bear such a loss and the leadership has really started to prepare for withdrawal from then, because they know it is impossible to win.

Not sure you can draw that conclusion - it was almost nine full years between that event and the eventual withdrawal. Basically the entire duration of the American involvement in WW1, WW2 and the Korean War combined.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

About air support, a important turning point of Afghanistan was that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2012_raid_on_Camp_Bastion

Very few media reported this raid, that is the first time a complete squadron of attack aircraft was destroyed by Taliban. This is a signal that the Coalition forces can no longer bear such a loss and the leadership has really started to prepare for withdrawal from then, because they know it is impossible to win.

Aside from @najaB's point that this was 9 years ago, the article you cite indicates that just two allied soldiers were killed, vs. 14 Taliban fighters. Granted some very expensive aircraft were damaged or destroyed too, but that doesn't seem to me like the kind of large-scale loss of life that should reasonably have been making us think that we need to withdraw.