Warning: This chapter will get a tad bit... dark, at times. Read at your own discretion.
Warning 2, Electric Boogaloo: Yet again, I will attempt to remain NEUTRAL in this. I will not side with anyone, but I will do my best to bring out the cons of each side. However, here's something special: at the end of this chapter I will put in a 'my opinion' section, detailing what I think of this entire thing and what should happen. If you don't agree with it, then I'm okay with that. However, if you want to try to start an argument with me do keep in mind that I have listed all of the argument material in the chapter already. I am not Lady Justice; while my eyesight is pretty poor I am not blind.
Whoo, boy! I seem to be begging to be cancelled on Twitter (not that I'm popular enough to even BE cancelled, but you know what I mean), because the controversial topics keep on rolling in!
To give a quick summarization, one of Biden's first acts as president was to pull the US soldiers out of Afghanistan, a move that may have resonated true with many Americans, as we're pretty much tired of 'war' by now.
Unfortunately for us, the Taliban is actually a tad bit more powerful than we thought. Either that, or Afghanistan is weaker than we thought, because the Taliban basically steamrolled through Afghanistan. As of right now, they have taken Kabul, and their leaders are waiting to leave from Qatar. The US pullout is now widely criticized by pretty much a majority of world leaders, and dear ol' Boris Johnson (using 'dear ol'' figuratively, of course) even pinned the blame on the USA alone.
So! As a proud member of the (mostly) neutral club, let's examine the details a bit closer.
Debunking #1: The pullout was good for the United States! They should keep out of everyone's business!
Refute: Unfortunately, this is a half-truth. This statement implies that all that the United States has done was bad, which is definitely not true... somewhat. Of course, I'm not going to gloss over the war crimes the US did in relatively recent years, including, but not limited to:
-Torture
-Prisoner abuse
-Massacres
-Systemic genocide
Mind you, all of the above were committed in the last 20-50 years. Our grandparents were still alive when these happened.
Author's note: However, it's relatively safe to say that the US has 'sobered up' over the years, so to speak... RELATIVELY safe. For perhaps an obvious reason, I was not able to find any sources on if the US committed any war crimes in the last 10-20 years, except for isolated incidents of the killing of civilians, and most of the time those were not purposeful.
Now, let's compare these to the Korean War, shall we? More specifically, North Korea's atrocities in the coming years after the war.
-Little to no pay for civilians (I'm talking so low that $1000 per year is considered high pay)
-Active purging of any civilian who dares speak out against the government
-Treating the Kim family as if they are gods
-Repression of freedom of speech, press, assembly, right to petition the government, and religion*
Addendum 1: While North Korea does have churches/mosques/synagogues, they are all heavily regulated by the government and are typically just NK propaganda sites
Quite a bit worse, right? And remember, America interfered in the Korean War. Even with all of the... less better things they did (cough, war crimes, cough), in the long run it's arguably better than an entire peninsula occupied by the North Korean government**.
The same can be said for what happens if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan. Let's look over some of their current atrocities, shall we?
-Executing POW's
-R*pe of women as young as TWELVE
-Executing civilians connected to the Afghanistan government***
-Suppression of women's rights, including right to education
... yeah. A tad bit bad, don't ya think?
Debunking #2: Okay, but why should I care about some Middle Eastern country? It's not going to affect me
Actually, it will! ESPECIALLY if you live in America!
Here, let's put it like this:
Taliban takes over Afghanistan -> Destabilisation -> People flee from Afghanistan into surrounding countries -> Destabilisation to surrounding countries -> Extremist groups LIKE the Taliban get a foothold in destabling countries
And then you basically rinse and repeat!
Okay, wait. Here's more to that. If the extremist groups do gain a foothold in the surrounding countries, then they might do acts of terrorism to 'give a message' or something like that. I'm not a terrorist, I don't have their mindset! Anyways, the terrorists might do some terrorizing: blow up a bus or two, take people hostage, do another 9/11, that sort of small little thing! It's not as if the TSA is wildly ineffective at its job!
Debunking #3: I bet that the media is just over-exaggerating everything as always. Maybe the Afghans will just accept the Taliban as their new government!
Thousands of Afghan civilians are currently at Kabul Airport, trying to flee the country. 'Nuff said.
Opinion part begins here:
Personally, I think the US pullout of Afghanistan was a really bad idea in the long run. We've seen what happened in Vietnam, when the United States pulled out of that one. Now we have a communist Vietnam!
Despite the numerous (and I do mean numerous) war crimes/atrocities the USA may or may not have committed, it will most definitely balk in comparison to the potential number of war crimes/atrocities the Taliban will do.
However, I still cannot ignore the USA atrocities. What do I do?
Well, it's a tad bit too complicated for us to fully do as a nation, unfortunately. It's called: get our f---ing act together.
I'm being serious here.
...
On that note, I'm nowhere near patient enough or smart enough to completely outline a good way for a reform of that scale. See y'all!
Sources:
Author's note: For perhaps obvious reasons, I was not able to find sources from REALLY reputable sources, so I was forced to use sites like Quora and Wikipedia in order to obtain information. Keep in mind though that Wikipedia and Quora both share the same mindset of neutrality through
*While North Korea does have churches/mosques/synagogues, they are all heavily regulated by the government and are typically just NK propaganda sites
**I am aware of the South Korean dictatorship and the widespread corruption plaguing the country as of the moment. However, given the state of South Korea today - an economic powerhouse - I'd say that it's still better than North Korea
***This is one that I'm not really sure about. However, given that the Taliban are basically pulling a USSR and killing everyone who dares to cross them, I wouldn't doubt this
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Debunking stuff
RandomA series of me debunking stuff, usually conspiracy theories and whatnot.
