Afghanistan

[Dill]

(08-26-2021, 08:44 PM)samhain Wrote: One thing I do not get: if you're part of the Taliban or even ISIS, what the hell are you thinking killing American troops (or allowing them to be killed) as they are trying to leave you're country?  You finally have control after 20 years and there's almost no chance that Biden is changing his mind about withdrawal barring some kind of incident exactly like this one.

The American public on both the right and left had lost it's taste for war with no end in sight.  That brand of terrorism dropped down the list of American priorities a good bit with us being too busy hating each other to bother anymore.  We're more interested in accusing each other of being terrorists than we are in worrying about terrorism abroad.  

Now, I'd say that's about to change.  if anything would re-ignite the public's taste for occupation and bloodshed in Afghanistan it's the killing of Americans as they are trying to leave.

I can speculate about the bolded. 

I don't see any evidence that the Taliban want to kill American troops. Rather the opposite.

They are intent on setting up a state which will have a modicum of international relations, especially with countries like Pakistan,
China, and Russia, and to some degree Usbekistan and Tajikstan. I believe they will take over Afghanistan's seat at the UN.

The sooner the Americans are gone, the less resistance to all their goals. 

ISIS is an altogether different cup of tea--unless it has morphed into a new variant of the original ideology.

Their goal is to set up their own Islamic Caliphate. If they are like their Syrian-Iraqi parent, they won't want to share power or legitimacy with the Taliban. And they won't have normalized relations with other countries. Unless they have changed, I don't see them getting along with the Taliban at all.  

If they are like their parent, it would be in their interest to attack American checkpoints, killing Americans and Taliban and innnocent civilians alike, leaving the US and Taliban to hopefully come to blows, disrupt the exit, create chaos.

Apparently they have already been fighting the taliban in at least one eastern province.