Should have done this ten years ago, but better late than never, I guess.

Say what you want about Korea but their decision to develop nukes was 100% correct.

How does Iran always have the perfect counter to any Epsteini threat? They can’t keep getting away like this.

If an aircraft enters your airspace without your permission, you can shoot it down. Who is on it is immaterial. I can understand Italy, Greece and Canada not having AA missiles or not wanting to piss off the US, but France can 100% get away with it. The US won’t pick a fight with a nuclear power.

‘To be a US enemy is dangerous, but to be a US ally is fatal.’

They’re not allowed to leave South Korea or do many types of jobs for a certain number of years. They get a little help from the government, but most rely on giving interviews to the media or public speaking to make ends meet. This suits the South Korean government, since saying positive things about North Korea is illegal, so these people can be starved into saying whatever they want.

Are you going to continue the ignore the point like the good little bootlicker you are, or are you going to try to make an actual response?

I can tell you where to start reading, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do the reading yourself. So, once again, Google that Omar guy. Read his Wikipedia page. You’ll learn about the Taliban’s connections to the Mujahideen.

There is generally accepted to have been well over a million civilian deaths in Afghanistan over the course of the Soviet invasion.

There are over ten million civilian deaths in my country every year. People die of all sorts of reasons. That’s not what ‘genocide’ means.

the Soviets invaded in order to prop up the government - ie the government failing was what initiated the invasion.

If you read the part of my comment you quoted, you might notice that I was talking about the period immediately after the Soviets left, when the Afghan army did win battles against the Mujahideen. In fact, the Soviets made the same mistake the US would make later - when you directly intervene in another country’s,internal matters, even the people who might otherwise have agreed with you will see you as an invader (because, well, you are) and fight you.

Again, ignoring that the Taliban was formed largely by Pashtun religious students from Pakistan who were too young to have been involved in the Mujahideen.

Heard of this guy called Mullah Omar? Google that name.

Fucking lmao. Killing 10% of Afghanistan’s population is just ‘harsh’.

Any evidence for this claim?

which had failed of its own accord

Again, evidence? The Afghan government was beating the terrorists even after the Soviets left, so on what basis had they ‘failed’?

the Taliban is the successor to the Islamist groups it literally fought a brutal civil war against.

Yes. The Taliban was a faction (well, a couple of factions) of the Mujahideen that then fought a civil war against various other factions of the Mujahideen.

I love how casually you gloss over the genocidal Soviet occupation

Genocidal? Taraki and Karmak were not perfect. They tried to change things too quickly, and angered many traditionalists and rural groups. But there’s a bit of a difference between ‘repressive’ or ‘harsh’ and genocidal. It’s the difference between, say, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Anyway, back to my criticism:

The US funded and armed a bunch of ultra-religious nutjobs to fight a government which, while far from perfect, had enacted reforms, protected the rights of women, and maintained a balance between the various tribes. It is not hard to predict what would result if that government collapsed, and, in fact, that is exactly what happened. Are all US military experts dumb? Or did they simply not care? Either way, they destroyed a country.

And then, of course, they repeated the same ‘mistake’ in Iraq, Libya and Syria. At this point, it is difficult to call it a mistake. Perhaps oil companies were involved.

Do you think the Taliban ‘fell out of a coconut tree’, as one of your politicians used to say? It is a successor to the Hezbi Islami, Haraqat Inqilab Islami and other factions of the Mujahideen. These were funded and armed by the US to destabilise the Soviets, with zero thought going into what would happen if a country’s government is weakened and religious zealots let loose with weapons and cash. (This is not to absolve Pakistan’s ISI, by the way. They wanted a weak and divided Afghanistan, and have helped various shady groups over the years.)

The Taliban was a part of the Mujahideen.

The Taliban that wasn’t even formed until after US interest in Afghanistan was long-over?

I know the US govt is incapable of thinking about the consequences of their actions, but you can try to do better.

I guess the destabilising bit there would be supporting the Taliban in the first place.