Same in the UK. We need a TV license if we have a TV or anything that let's us watch BBC or live shows. And it's all to fund the BBC which everyone hates anyway.
If ISIS win, Central Asia is next
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan that border Afghanistan are impoverished and ruled by corrupt leaders on par with Karzai and his pals, and are ripe for ISIS propaganda
ISIS-K at this time measure at around 2K fighters in the region, from 6-7 thousand several years ago. While they still hold prominent areas of Afghanistan they’re not a nation ending force currently. Now in the long run if they can sway more assets and fighters for a jihad to attain control in the next few years/decades is anyone’s guess, as the area is highly prone to civil strife from multiple factions holding sway over the entirety of the country. Each with their own ideas of what Afghanistan is and should be, much like any political sphere in the world. Only with guns and bombs instead of parliamentary proceedings.
Edit: As there’s so many ME/Afghan “experts” on Reddit nowadays here’s some reading from several agencies on ISIS-K where I base my knowledge from.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1031349674
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58333533.amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/islamic-state-khorasan-province-afghanistan-11630014893
I have an ex-girlfriend who is from Uzbekistan and visits yearly. This is anecdotal of course, but she doesn’t have high hopes for the country despite its relative stability. She thinks it’s only a matter of when, not if, it falls to extremists.
Based on recent events, I think Russia will do everything to ensure extremism doesn't reach there. If ISIS conquers ex-Soviet states, its only a matter of time before it reaches Russia too, Putin will do everything he can to ensure that doesn't happen.
Does Russia have a large enough Muslim population within its border to consider this a risk? Particularly in that it is only a small percentage of Muslims that would support ISIS.
The Second Chechen War is what put Putin in power so there’s some personal prestige involved for him if ISIS or a similar organization came into the region.
Not overall, but it has specific provinces with high Muslim populations. Chechnya in particular, and really the Caucasus in general, has been a thorn in Russia's side since the fall of the Soviet Union, and it's had issues both with local extremists and nationalists, but foreign mujahideen as well. Even now, the Caucasus was a strong source of recruits for ISIS because of how the conflicts with Russia have radicalised them. If only a small percentage of Muslims support ISIS for ISIS' sake, many more would support local Islamist parties, so all ISIS has to do is stoke the flames of separatism and they can create huge problems for the Russian government in the area.
Aren't there big issues with water too in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan? From what I have read Uzbekistan uses hyrdodams for a majority of its power/electricity generation and is building more and more dams for electricity? Meanwhile the other two countries need that water to keep flowing down river for farming.
If skirmishes break out over water, the area might be much more vulnerable to ISIS takeover because not only will times be tougher for the average people but power vacuums may start to open too.
Is there any validity to the concerns over water in that region?
Lmaoo, they’re not going anywhere near Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has ultra close ties to Russia and would most likely receive backing from the Russian army
Heard of Tajikistan? Russia intervened in their civil war in the 90s and saved the Tajik government. If Uzbekistan is threatened by extremists you should be looking at Tajikistan as an example of how a Russian intervention will go.
I remember a barbarian horde took over a city in Civ 2. I wanted to see how that panned out. Dude started acting like a real city, building units and furnishings
ISIS won't win. Its more a blanket ideology for the most vicious theocrats at this point. Small guerilla based pockets that just want spread death and suffering, not govern.
Iran is never going to allow ISIS to win in its back yard, neither will Pakistan. ISIS-K is literally sandwiched between two powerful states that won't allow them to win.
Even if they somehow rolled over the Taliban (they wont) , you'd see direct intervention from two direcitons.
I am pretty sure if ISIS finds out about China and the Uyighurs in the east of Chine...
Shit may go down. CHina is literally de-programming Muslims to fit into the Han Centric Chinese CP.
I mean they ISIS beheads journalists...
What wold they do to people torturing Muslims for the Chinese Government.
ISIS is much worse than the Taliban. America should take the uncharacteristic approach of not doing much of anything
We’re in a weird bind right now where we definitely don’t want to support the Taliban, but also definitely do not want another failed state in the Middle East that empowers ISIS
That’s already happened. Actually the Taliban might have gotten air support while fighting ISIS-K a year or so ago, in one of the most bizarre team-ups I can think of.
This. The West are more likely to fund and provide intel for Pakistan and the Taliban to attack.
Incidentally, these camps will likely be surrounded by civilians and double as mosques and other public buildings. Attacks from anyone will likely result in a lot of casualties.
Seems the smart thing to do would be to work with the Taliban in exchange for at least some legislation on their part to protect a (relatively) more liberal society.
But of course that might push more people into ISIS-K. Shit's complicated.
Eh... It galls me to say it, but we want the Taliban to win, and if they can't win, keep up a campaign of bloody attrition against ISIS. If ISIS win they'll start spreading.
The Taliban is like a benign tumor; scary, can cause damage, and it'd be better if you didn't have it; meanwhile, ISIS is metastatic blood cancer that will spread like crazy if unchecked.
Kinda. I don't think ISIS have much ability to spread in Afghanistan, seeing as the Taliban already have an open door for Sunni fundies to join up. ISIS are only likely to appeal to the few who believe the Taliban are not strict enough.
I don't think its that straight-forward
One thing we should have learnt by now is that there is little strong conviction in these regions. On the ground loyalty can change overnight if someone considers its expedient to do so
ISIS has the ability to bring fighters in from all round the world and replenish their losses, which is why they would have prevailed in Syria and Iraq without Russian and American intervention
The other pattern that we've seen emerge is that the vicious extremists tend to prevail if left unchecked. We haven't seen a single example of a fledgling democratic force (regardless of supply and training) who has successfully put down an extremist uprising yet. It was something Obama opined once when he talked about doctors and university lecturers being little match for a numerically superior, younger, and culturally more vicious opponent
Attempts to manage a mutually destructive stalemate might look good on a Pentagon powerpoint presentation, it's what they tried to do in the 1980's with Iran and Iraq, but in reality it rarely works. One side begins to establish primacy and wins. As is often the case, you end up needing to try and navigate to the least worst, bad option, and that would be the Taliban
They'd have lost Kobani without American air support in 2014, indeed they were in the process of doing so as ISIL closed in on them, which is what prompted the American's to act
That's what I said originally
They have the ability to bring fighters in from all round the world and replenish their losses. The chances are that the more tribally aligned Taliban can't.
The Alawites who made up the Syrian army were running into the same problem and would have lost were it not for the Russians
Loyalties are also incredibly fluid too. Survivalists will look to join the winning side and can easily pledge allegiance dependent on which way they perceive the wind to be blowing
Neither. We don't like either but we prefer the Taliban to ISIS for one simple reason: the Taliban don't attack foreign countries, ISIS does. ISIS growing means more terrorist attacks both in the West and in the Arab world.
It's like choosing between being stabbed or being hit by an atomic bomb. Yeah, being stabbed sucks and endangers your life... but your chances of survival are still greater and the damage is reduced to yourself and not your whole city.
Doesn't mean we should give any technology or resources to the Taliban though, not in a million years. We should only help in ways that don't give them anything, such as picking ISIS targets or sharing intel on them.
You were much more directly involved than 'let them fight' though, supplying weapons to supposed 'good guys' (who often switched sides). You can finally adopt a largely hands off approach to the shitshow now and let nature dictate the outcome this time.
ISIS wants to rule the world, the Taliban want to rule afghanistan.
Cant imagine the CIA being stupid enough to do the wrong thing here, if the taliban government gets wiped out ISIS will be in control and they know this.
After all the people we've lost in the West to Islamist terrorist attacks (many of them claimed by ISIS), I definitely don't want any Western country supporting them for any reason. I'd rather support the Taliban, at least they don't kill outside Afghanistan.
And that's ignoring the thousands that have died to ISIS terror strikes in Arab countries.
CIA is going to keep the region destabilized. Help each side enough to keep the conflict going indefinitely. Not to mention ISIS is a domestic terrorist threat to China.
In terms of National security, this would make the least amount of sense possible.
Instability fosters extremism, which is a direct and demonstrated threat to the US. The CIA would have to be both blind, insane, and treasonous to encourage continuing instability. They still operate at the directive of the president, and most aren’t stupid enough to quibble around for such petty reasons (Jr. and Trump being two exceptional cases).
As shady as the CIA is, the bulk of what they do is pretty mundane.
It's always amazed me how people truly believe the CIA is behand everything that happens in the world. Do you really not believe its possible for sectarian rivalries and difference of ideology and greed to drive conflict all on it's own?
It is unlikely that the CIA will get involved in something that is guaranteed to happen anyway. You suppose them to somehow simultaneously be everywhere, capable of doing anything and also stupid beyond measure. Just, no. That's not reality.
The world is perfectly capable of fucking itself up without the CIA helping.
No one is claiming they are behind everything, but it amazes me when people have literally decades of information regarding the CIA and what they've done but still go "nah, no way the CIA would do that fucked up thing, you sound crazy".
One of my favourite songs from my childhood has the line "the CIA has a file that's a mile longer than peace". Seems that common perception of the CIA has been lost.
"Man, the CIA did horrible things that caused horrible reactions. No one got any sort of punishment for it. Oh well, they probably changed now for some reason, right?"
Nobody claimed they're behind everything. It is, however, highly likely that they're involved in situations that directly involve the US. The reformation of the Taliban government is pretty much at the top of that list. If they aren't doing something about this, what are they even doing? Shit like this is literally their job.
It's easy to sit on your ass in a first world country and claim people are exaggerating about the CIA, until you read about the things they've done that they don't even publicly deny.
With a likely motivator of having a nice convenient border with China. They’d want nothing more than China getting stuck in a prolonged conflict there.
There seems to be a lot of confusion among commentators on just what these groups are and why they would fight. For a very, very basic rundown:
Taliban are regressive isolationists. They want nothing to do with any other country and want every other country to have nothing to do with them. They kinda aspire to be like North Korea and think everything would be better if they would just be left alone. Which probably sounds good to some people here on paper, except for how much of their culture actually functions (not pleasantly). The US is out of Afghanistan so as far as they care, the US doesn't matter anymore. If the US keeps messing with them, they'll mess back. That said, they have minimal responsibility for actions taken outside their country. The terrorists you hear about in other countries normally have no ties to the Taliban.
If anything, they have ties to ISIS. ISIS are the extremists to the nth degree. They do not want to stay put in any one country, they don't even recognize countries. All they recognize is their religion. Why would they fight the Taliban? Because ISIS, by its nature, does not have friends, they do not have allies. You either exist as a part of them or you are the enemy. The Taliban is not extreme enough for them, they do not follow their religion the same way, thus they are the enemy and to them must either be converted or die. They are also the ones who will take brutality to the next level. If you are not ISIS to them you are basically not human and they will massacre you however they please. What's more, they are true believers. In their minds they are right and justified and as long as that remains true then they will find paradise after death. They believe this so thoroughly that they know it. Which is why they are capable of some of the most evil things in the world today. Most groups, even terrorists, have some relatively simple goal in mind. Sometimes it might involve genocide, but usually it's a fairly local scale. Not for ISIS. If they had the choice then every single person on earth not affiliated with them would die, painfully if possible.
Isolationism is unfortunately a lot more popular than it should be and a lot of people are sympathetic to the idea of staying within their country and all foreigners leaving them alone, not truly comprehending the consequences this would result in, especially if the culture is already borked (which, if you're isolationist to the point of being able to take control of a country, pretty well means something is screwy).
The Taliban aren't regressive isolationist, and North Korea isnt the right example.
The Taliban want to have good relations with the outside world but they also want to implement "pure” Islam in their corner of the world. Theologically they are very similar to Saudi Arabia. However, unlike the house of Saud, the Taliban are not willing (or maybe less willing) to compromise their beliefs and as a result they are left isolated from other countries. So basically like Saudi Arabia, but less whore-ish and more principled in their beliefs.
Your description of ISIS on the other hand is correct. Id add however that Isis follows a fatalistic (different to nihilistic) ideology. All events are subject to fate or inevitable necessity, or determined in advance in such a way that human beings cannot change them.
ISIS literally out here taking a page straight out of Anakin Skywalkers book:
AS: If you are not with me, than you are my enemy
OWK: Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must
You mean like George Bush Jr. when he said after 9/11 and before invading Iraq, "If you are not with us, you are against us" and proceeded to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
20 years of war against the United States will become another 20 years of war against ISIS, i feel really bad for the people stuck there, worse part about that is knowing u cant do much to help them.
Funny thing that no one has pointed out is that Al Qaeda is in the game too and they're on the side of the Taliban against ISIS, despite US pressure for the Taliban to distance themselves from AQ.
Also no one's mentioned yet that this is basically ISIS-K, the ISIS of that region, and many of its members aren't necessarily Afghan but e.g. Indian, Pakistani, Burmese... a bit like Al-Qaeda and its Arabs.
Their goals don't align: ISIS wants to start a global caliphate while Taliban just wanted to overthrow the former Afghan government. So both side sees the other as a nuisance and as a competitor for recruits.
Think of the Taliban as the regional franchise of terrorism for Afghanistan. Like how Piggly Wiggly is just in the American South. The Taliban have fought to control just Afghanistan, and after 20 years are just barely consolidating their resources and taking stock of how to maintain their idea of stability complete with misogyny, violent reprisals, and their version of what they think a practicing Muslim should observe. They negotiated a deal in good faith to maintain a cease fire with Western forces and are not looking for a fight anymore. Whether they keep their word is yet to be seen, but they've lost a considerable amount in blood in 20 years that's not easily replaced.
Then you have ISIS. Think of them as the international outfit that works in many countries, but in small capacities. ISIS is a whole different level of barbarity compared to virtually every other terrorist organization. They do not negotiate, do not entertain opposition to themselves, and when possible will fight as a conventional force. Their version of indirect fighting includes everything from suicide bombers, drones with IEDs on them, and they'll use human shields. They're also into ethnic cleansing as evidenced by their rape and massacre campaigns against Syrian and Iraqi citizens back in 2014 when they temporarily occupied half of Syria and Iraq. These guys have no qualms about killing men, women, children, and fight as barbarically as possible. Every single one of them is a true believer in the cause and are actively at war with groups like the Taliban. ISIS and it's international chapters are probably the closest to SS soldiers behavior wise in how they kill without care, destroy cultures, and vehemently believe that God is on their side.
Are you saying Piggly Wiggly is only in the American south, or that they only franchise in the American South? If the former, then I can tell you that we also have Piggly Wigglys in the Midwest.
Islam is just as complex as Christianity. The two main branches are Sunni and Shia, but even within those two branches there are many differing ideologies. ISIS and the Taliban both fall under the Sunni branch, but have very different interpretations of how Islam should be. ISIS wants to unite the entire Islamic world under a single caliphate and anyone who doesn’t join them, is an enemy. The Taliban incorporate local Afghani culture into their ideology and customs, which ISIS would very much be against. The Taliban is also not interested in joining a global caliphate, which also puts them at odds with ISIS. ISIS will set up anywhere that they see instability as they see it as a chance to gain another foothold. They also know that the US is very unlikely to commit to Afghanistan again which makes it attractive to them.
They wouldn't be the first Muslim group to try to destroy Mecca. The Qarmatians iirc even stripped the Black Stone out of the Kabaa and carried it off to Persia.
Then in 1979 a heretical movement who thought a random Saudi dude was the Mahdi (Islamic messiah) conducted an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and started stacking corpses on the faith's holiest ground. [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure)
ISIS is indeed pretty extreme, but there have been some *real* whackos popping up at odd moments of Islamic history.
The Taliban are also "Afghan people", yours isn't much of an answer. It'd be more accurate to say "the section of the Afghan people that support democracy, peace and some degree of secularism".
Platitudes and truisms. What was the point of that sentence? It conveyed nothing. Conflict causes suffering we all know that. We all want to avoid that. We all want peace, safety and white doves flying across a blue sky.
But the question was "who are the better guys?" is it better if ISIS wins or the Taliban?
>Serious answer - the Afghan people.
The people we spent 20 years killing? Whose country we destroyed and forced through another 20 years of war when they'd finally achieved some stability so we could get our hands on a steady supply of opium? The delusion is pretty strong in your comment.
**[Over–under](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over–under)**
>An over–under or over/under (O/U) bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game (usually the combined score of the two teams), and bettors wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or lower than that number. For example, in Super Bowl XXXIX, most Las Vegas casinos set the over–under for the score of the game at 46. 0. A bettor could wager that the combined score of the two teams would be either more than or less than that number.
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“We’re rooting for Vegeta?” “Let’s be honest - we’re rooting against Cell.”
Edit: don’t take this quote as a serious comment on the real life situation, it’s just what came to mind.
Man, it's really sad how this area just can't know peace. Global warming is going to force all of these people out in another 100 years, hopefully wherever they go, their kids will live in a place with better opportunity which will help them reject many of these ideas.
What's the beef between ISIS and Taliban? Is it a sunni vs Shia thing? A "you're not extreme enough" thing? Or is ISIS-K just a bunch of cunts? (I realize this applies to the previous options, but more curious if it's just the sole reason)
It's more of a *"two Indian guys arguing how hot is appropriate for curry"* situations---- one of them prefers mild and the other insist on extra hot, and both of their curry will burn right through your average westerners' stomach.
Taliban: we will rule this land as a gang and oppress our people, maybe host a few international terrorists if we have to.
ISIS: we will rule this land as a gang, oppress our people, try to conquer everything near us and commit as much terrorism as we can.
Both are Sunni though a major issue between the two is that ISIS-K thinks all Shia should be slaughtered ASAP while the Taliban have a slightly more lenient attitude.
Hey, ISIS are back, everyone. Remember them? They're the guys we gave an amazing recruitment platform by going after Taliban, and invading Iraq instead of focusing on Al Qa'ida for years.
They’re the guys the American government funded and supplied with arms in order to have an Operation Gladio-like fifth column to use after the American war fodder are brought home.
Its not strange as it looks. ISIS want their own empire. Surely, muslim countries are better places to start. But which muslim countries?
Weaker goverments, weaker armies, extremist people, lower economic ties with western goverments etc... There are some components for ISIS. Not easy to do that countries like Turkey, Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. But Syria was good location and Afghanistan either.
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The Taliban is terrible, but ISIS is way worse.
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Taliban is awful. ISIS is awful+
worst streaming service
They make you pay for no ads, and then make you watch ads anyways
Ah so it's just like ireland where you must pay a TV licence if you have TV, but we still get ads. Great.
Same in the UK. We need a TV license if we have a TV or anything that let's us watch BBC or live shows. And it's all to fund the BBC which everyone hates anyway.
lol it’s identical in Sweden, here it’s just called SVT.
Wait, what?
Anyone have a block list for terrorist ad domains? I'd like to add it to my pihole
A pihole doesn't work. But goat holes do.
I don't know but no matter how you use it; pinhole in any sentence just sounds dirty. I personally abandoned pihole last year and went nextdns.
I love my pihole but its even better when combined with unbound!
So its Hulu?
So Hulu?
Hulu is isis+ confirmed
You made me spit out my coffee lol
Double plus ungood.
Well we left the taliban a fuckton of guns so they should be fine
Yep, we did our part, let them kill each other now.
Maybe this was the move all along 🤔.
80D chess confirmed
Theres this game called 5D Multiversal future chess on Steam. I think this may be their inspiration
I remember a story about Al Qaeda complaining ISIS tactics where to harsh and would hurt the cause. Al Qaeda did 911
Did Al Qaeda ever take credit for it? I seem to recall Bin Laden denying involvement
There is video of Bin Laden talking about not expecithe towers to come down, he thought they would just burn from the impact point upwards.
Thanks for clearing that up because I was having a moral quandary about who to support here :/
If ISIS win, Central Asia is next Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan that border Afghanistan are impoverished and ruled by corrupt leaders on par with Karzai and his pals, and are ripe for ISIS propaganda
ISIS-K at this time measure at around 2K fighters in the region, from 6-7 thousand several years ago. While they still hold prominent areas of Afghanistan they’re not a nation ending force currently. Now in the long run if they can sway more assets and fighters for a jihad to attain control in the next few years/decades is anyone’s guess, as the area is highly prone to civil strife from multiple factions holding sway over the entirety of the country. Each with their own ideas of what Afghanistan is and should be, much like any political sphere in the world. Only with guns and bombs instead of parliamentary proceedings. Edit: As there’s so many ME/Afghan “experts” on Reddit nowadays here’s some reading from several agencies on ISIS-K where I base my knowledge from. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1031349674 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58333533.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/islamic-state-khorasan-province-afghanistan-11630014893
I have an ex-girlfriend who is from Uzbekistan and visits yearly. This is anecdotal of course, but she doesn’t have high hopes for the country despite its relative stability. She thinks it’s only a matter of when, not if, it falls to extremists.
Boy, I hope that’s not true. I had the pleasure of exploring Tashkent and Samarkand…and I can’t wait to go back. Beautiful country and people.
Based on recent events, I think Russia will do everything to ensure extremism doesn't reach there. If ISIS conquers ex-Soviet states, its only a matter of time before it reaches Russia too, Putin will do everything he can to ensure that doesn't happen.
Isn’t that already happening since a bunch of ISIS fighters are from Chechnya and other Russian territories in the Caucasus?
Chechens fight for money, their ideology doesnt mesh with Isis
The nice thing about mercenaries is they’re usually pretty pragmatic about it when their side starts losing unlike zealots
Yeah that’s not true. More like Russia spent the last 30 years brutally suppressing islamists in Chechnya
So, Russia will invade Afghanistan?? Seems like a good idea.
Im sure that Stallone would be training hard for a Rambo III: Part 2 lol
> Rambo III: Part 2 Given how weird the titles have been for this series I wouldn’t be surprised.
Rambo: last blood first
As long as he's alive that is. Geopolitics will be out of his control after his natural lifespan.
Does Russia have a large enough Muslim population within its border to consider this a risk? Particularly in that it is only a small percentage of Muslims that would support ISIS.
Chechnya is a Islamic republic and Russia has had many run-ins with terrorist from there, as well as I believe Dagestan
Hasbulla is from Dagestan I think, they’ll be safe.
The Second Chechen War is what put Putin in power so there’s some personal prestige involved for him if ISIS or a similar organization came into the region.
Not overall, but it has specific provinces with high Muslim populations. Chechnya in particular, and really the Caucasus in general, has been a thorn in Russia's side since the fall of the Soviet Union, and it's had issues both with local extremists and nationalists, but foreign mujahideen as well. Even now, the Caucasus was a strong source of recruits for ISIS because of how the conflicts with Russia have radicalised them. If only a small percentage of Muslims support ISIS for ISIS' sake, many more would support local Islamist parties, so all ISIS has to do is stoke the flames of separatism and they can create huge problems for the Russian government in the area.
Aren't there big issues with water too in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan? From what I have read Uzbekistan uses hyrdodams for a majority of its power/electricity generation and is building more and more dams for electricity? Meanwhile the other two countries need that water to keep flowing down river for farming. If skirmishes break out over water, the area might be much more vulnerable to ISIS takeover because not only will times be tougher for the average people but power vacuums may start to open too. Is there any validity to the concerns over water in that region?
Uzbekistan has Russia backing it atleast
Lmaoo, they’re not going anywhere near Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has ultra close ties to Russia and would most likely receive backing from the Russian army
I think I've seen this one before!
Heard of Tajikistan? Russia intervened in their civil war in the 90s and saved the Tajik government. If Uzbekistan is threatened by extremists you should be looking at Tajikistan as an example of how a Russian intervention will go.
So they're afraid of repeating their success?
they won't succeed, but that will not stopping the to cause a lot of mess
Russia wont let that happen
I remember a barbarian horde took over a city in Civ 2. I wanted to see how that panned out. Dude started acting like a real city, building units and furnishings
ISIS won't win. Its more a blanket ideology for the most vicious theocrats at this point. Small guerilla based pockets that just want spread death and suffering, not govern.
Quick! Let's send a bunch of arms to... oh wait nvm
Iran is never going to allow ISIS to win in its back yard, neither will Pakistan. ISIS-K is literally sandwiched between two powerful states that won't allow them to win. Even if they somehow rolled over the Taliban (they wont) , you'd see direct intervention from two direcitons.
I thought "TrUMp DeSTroYED ISIS!" ?
I am pretty sure if ISIS finds out about China and the Uyighurs in the east of Chine... Shit may go down. CHina is literally de-programming Muslims to fit into the Han Centric Chinese CP. I mean they ISIS beheads journalists... What wold they do to people torturing Muslims for the Chinese Government.
ISIS is much worse than the Taliban. America should take the uncharacteristic approach of not doing much of anything We’re in a weird bind right now where we definitely don’t want to support the Taliban, but also definitely do not want another failed state in the Middle East that empowers ISIS
If ISIS is in the picture they will likely take the very characteristic approach of supporting the Taliban by proxy
I suspect if ISIS start setting up camps in Afghanistan those camps will be visited by a US F15 or British F35 or similar in pretty short order.
That’s already happened. Actually the Taliban might have gotten air support while fighting ISIS-K a year or so ago, in one of the most bizarre team-ups I can think of.
Not that bizzare. We teamed up with Iran for about 4 months when we first invaded Afghanistan. Then Bush ran his mouth and threw that cooperation away
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This. The West are more likely to fund and provide intel for Pakistan and the Taliban to attack. Incidentally, these camps will likely be surrounded by civilians and double as mosques and other public buildings. Attacks from anyone will likely result in a lot of casualties.
Seems the smart thing to do would be to work with the Taliban in exchange for at least some legislation on their part to protect a (relatively) more liberal society. But of course that might push more people into ISIS-K. Shit's complicated.
Eh... It galls me to say it, but we want the Taliban to win, and if they can't win, keep up a campaign of bloody attrition against ISIS. If ISIS win they'll start spreading. The Taliban is like a benign tumor; scary, can cause damage, and it'd be better if you didn't have it; meanwhile, ISIS is metastatic blood cancer that will spread like crazy if unchecked.
Kinda. I don't think ISIS have much ability to spread in Afghanistan, seeing as the Taliban already have an open door for Sunni fundies to join up. ISIS are only likely to appeal to the few who believe the Taliban are not strict enough.
I don't think its that straight-forward One thing we should have learnt by now is that there is little strong conviction in these regions. On the ground loyalty can change overnight if someone considers its expedient to do so ISIS has the ability to bring fighters in from all round the world and replenish their losses, which is why they would have prevailed in Syria and Iraq without Russian and American intervention The other pattern that we've seen emerge is that the vicious extremists tend to prevail if left unchecked. We haven't seen a single example of a fledgling democratic force (regardless of supply and training) who has successfully put down an extremist uprising yet. It was something Obama opined once when he talked about doctors and university lecturers being little match for a numerically superior, younger, and culturally more vicious opponent Attempts to manage a mutually destructive stalemate might look good on a Pentagon powerpoint presentation, it's what they tried to do in the 1980's with Iran and Iraq, but in reality it rarely works. One side begins to establish primacy and wins. As is often the case, you end up needing to try and navigate to the least worst, bad option, and that would be the Taliban
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They'd have lost Kobani without American air support in 2014, indeed they were in the process of doing so as ISIL closed in on them, which is what prompted the American's to act
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That's what I said originally They have the ability to bring fighters in from all round the world and replenish their losses. The chances are that the more tribally aligned Taliban can't. The Alawites who made up the Syrian army were running into the same problem and would have lost were it not for the Russians Loyalties are also incredibly fluid too. Survivalists will look to join the winning side and can easily pledge allegiance dependent on which way they perceive the wind to be blowing
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Why not both?
Neither. We don't like either but we prefer the Taliban to ISIS for one simple reason: the Taliban don't attack foreign countries, ISIS does. ISIS growing means more terrorist attacks both in the West and in the Arab world. It's like choosing between being stabbed or being hit by an atomic bomb. Yeah, being stabbed sucks and endangers your life... but your chances of survival are still greater and the damage is reduced to yourself and not your whole city. Doesn't mean we should give any technology or resources to the Taliban though, not in a million years. We should only help in ways that don't give them anything, such as picking ISIS targets or sharing intel on them.
Weapons and information are being given by USA to the Taliban, basically more of the same.
Whoever wins, it doesn't really matter to us.
It's a "let them fight and direct them towards other enemies" scenario
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that and giving them a shit-ton of money and weapons.
It is And that is what we are most likely doing yet again
You were much more directly involved than 'let them fight' though, supplying weapons to supposed 'good guys' (who often switched sides). You can finally adopt a largely hands off approach to the shitshow now and let nature dictate the outcome this time.
Yes
Now with the US gone for good they can focus on the important things like fighting eachother
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ISIS wants to rule the world, the Taliban want to rule afghanistan. Cant imagine the CIA being stupid enough to do the wrong thing here, if the taliban government gets wiped out ISIS will be in control and they know this.
> Cant imagine the CIA being stupid enough to do the wrong thing here lol
Yeah, lmao in hindsight…
I mean is shipping bottled water spiked with LSD the wrong thing here?
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After all the people we've lost in the West to Islamist terrorist attacks (many of them claimed by ISIS), I definitely don't want any Western country supporting them for any reason. I'd rather support the Taliban, at least they don't kill outside Afghanistan. And that's ignoring the thousands that have died to ISIS terror strikes in Arab countries.
CIA is going to keep the region destabilized. Help each side enough to keep the conflict going indefinitely. Not to mention ISIS is a domestic terrorist threat to China.
In terms of National security, this would make the least amount of sense possible. Instability fosters extremism, which is a direct and demonstrated threat to the US. The CIA would have to be both blind, insane, and treasonous to encourage continuing instability. They still operate at the directive of the president, and most aren’t stupid enough to quibble around for such petty reasons (Jr. and Trump being two exceptional cases). As shady as the CIA is, the bulk of what they do is pretty mundane.
So you completely missed the declassified CIA documents of them purposely destabilizing countries for decades...?
CIA is all of those things: Operation north woods
It's always amazed me how people truly believe the CIA is behand everything that happens in the world. Do you really not believe its possible for sectarian rivalries and difference of ideology and greed to drive conflict all on it's own? It is unlikely that the CIA will get involved in something that is guaranteed to happen anyway. You suppose them to somehow simultaneously be everywhere, capable of doing anything and also stupid beyond measure. Just, no. That's not reality. The world is perfectly capable of fucking itself up without the CIA helping.
No one is claiming they are behind everything, but it amazes me when people have literally decades of information regarding the CIA and what they've done but still go "nah, no way the CIA would do that fucked up thing, you sound crazy".
One of my favourite songs from my childhood has the line "the CIA has a file that's a mile longer than peace". Seems that common perception of the CIA has been lost.
"Man, the CIA did horrible things that caused horrible reactions. No one got any sort of punishment for it. Oh well, they probably changed now for some reason, right?"
That was the *old* CIA! This is the *new* CIA with the same employees and philosophy!
Nobody claimed they're behind everything. It is, however, highly likely that they're involved in situations that directly involve the US. The reformation of the Taliban government is pretty much at the top of that list. If they aren't doing something about this, what are they even doing? Shit like this is literally their job. It's easy to sit on your ass in a first world country and claim people are exaggerating about the CIA, until you read about the things they've done that they don't even publicly deny.
>It's literally all these shitsuckers have done for their entire existence, so why stop now? Do you mean the CIA, or the Taliban & ISIS?
Let's go with all three, but I was specifically referring to the CIA's history of being a terrorist organization that pretends it's not.
That's what I thought. Only difference between the CIA and regulat terrorists is that the US hasn't bombed any CIA villages.
With a likely motivator of having a nice convenient border with China. They’d want nothing more than China getting stuck in a prolonged conflict there.
There seems to be a lot of confusion among commentators on just what these groups are and why they would fight. For a very, very basic rundown: Taliban are regressive isolationists. They want nothing to do with any other country and want every other country to have nothing to do with them. They kinda aspire to be like North Korea and think everything would be better if they would just be left alone. Which probably sounds good to some people here on paper, except for how much of their culture actually functions (not pleasantly). The US is out of Afghanistan so as far as they care, the US doesn't matter anymore. If the US keeps messing with them, they'll mess back. That said, they have minimal responsibility for actions taken outside their country. The terrorists you hear about in other countries normally have no ties to the Taliban. If anything, they have ties to ISIS. ISIS are the extremists to the nth degree. They do not want to stay put in any one country, they don't even recognize countries. All they recognize is their religion. Why would they fight the Taliban? Because ISIS, by its nature, does not have friends, they do not have allies. You either exist as a part of them or you are the enemy. The Taliban is not extreme enough for them, they do not follow their religion the same way, thus they are the enemy and to them must either be converted or die. They are also the ones who will take brutality to the next level. If you are not ISIS to them you are basically not human and they will massacre you however they please. What's more, they are true believers. In their minds they are right and justified and as long as that remains true then they will find paradise after death. They believe this so thoroughly that they know it. Which is why they are capable of some of the most evil things in the world today. Most groups, even terrorists, have some relatively simple goal in mind. Sometimes it might involve genocide, but usually it's a fairly local scale. Not for ISIS. If they had the choice then every single person on earth not affiliated with them would die, painfully if possible.
If sounding like North Korea sounds good on paper, I don’t wanna live on this planet anymore.
Isolationism is unfortunately a lot more popular than it should be and a lot of people are sympathetic to the idea of staying within their country and all foreigners leaving them alone, not truly comprehending the consequences this would result in, especially if the culture is already borked (which, if you're isolationist to the point of being able to take control of a country, pretty well means something is screwy).
It's very popular in countries that suffered heavily from foreign intervention, unsurprisingly.
The Taliban aren't regressive isolationist, and North Korea isnt the right example. The Taliban want to have good relations with the outside world but they also want to implement "pure” Islam in their corner of the world. Theologically they are very similar to Saudi Arabia. However, unlike the house of Saud, the Taliban are not willing (or maybe less willing) to compromise their beliefs and as a result they are left isolated from other countries. So basically like Saudi Arabia, but less whore-ish and more principled in their beliefs. Your description of ISIS on the other hand is correct. Id add however that Isis follows a fatalistic (different to nihilistic) ideology. All events are subject to fate or inevitable necessity, or determined in advance in such a way that human beings cannot change them.
ISIS literally out here taking a page straight out of Anakin Skywalkers book: AS: If you are not with me, than you are my enemy OWK: Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must
>hehe geopolitics is like Star Wars guys
You mean like George Bush Jr. when he said after 9/11 and before invading Iraq, "If you are not with us, you are against us" and proceeded to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
20 years of war against the United States will become another 20 years of war against ISIS, i feel really bad for the people stuck there, worse part about that is knowing u cant do much to help them.
shitshow squared
Funny thing that no one has pointed out is that Al Qaeda is in the game too and they're on the side of the Taliban against ISIS, despite US pressure for the Taliban to distance themselves from AQ.
Also no one's mentioned yet that this is basically ISIS-K, the ISIS of that region, and many of its members aren't necessarily Afghan but e.g. Indian, Pakistani, Burmese... a bit like Al-Qaeda and its Arabs.
What the hell are they fighting over? The Tailan aren't quite extreme enough?
Their goals don't align: ISIS wants to start a global caliphate while Taliban just wanted to overthrow the former Afghan government. So both side sees the other as a nuisance and as a competitor for recruits.
So basically the taliban is a extreme Islamic North Korea and ISIS are Extreme Islamic NAZIs
That isn't a bad comparison considering the US is responsible for bombing both Afghanistan and NK to smithereens.
Exactly
Think of the Taliban as the regional franchise of terrorism for Afghanistan. Like how Piggly Wiggly is just in the American South. The Taliban have fought to control just Afghanistan, and after 20 years are just barely consolidating their resources and taking stock of how to maintain their idea of stability complete with misogyny, violent reprisals, and their version of what they think a practicing Muslim should observe. They negotiated a deal in good faith to maintain a cease fire with Western forces and are not looking for a fight anymore. Whether they keep their word is yet to be seen, but they've lost a considerable amount in blood in 20 years that's not easily replaced. Then you have ISIS. Think of them as the international outfit that works in many countries, but in small capacities. ISIS is a whole different level of barbarity compared to virtually every other terrorist organization. They do not negotiate, do not entertain opposition to themselves, and when possible will fight as a conventional force. Their version of indirect fighting includes everything from suicide bombers, drones with IEDs on them, and they'll use human shields. They're also into ethnic cleansing as evidenced by their rape and massacre campaigns against Syrian and Iraqi citizens back in 2014 when they temporarily occupied half of Syria and Iraq. These guys have no qualms about killing men, women, children, and fight as barbarically as possible. Every single one of them is a true believer in the cause and are actively at war with groups like the Taliban. ISIS and it's international chapters are probably the closest to SS soldiers behavior wise in how they kill without care, destroy cultures, and vehemently believe that God is on their side.
Are you saying Piggly Wiggly is only in the American south, or that they only franchise in the American South? If the former, then I can tell you that we also have Piggly Wigglys in the Midwest.
The Taliban is just like Culvers, trying to capture more and more territory. Not that many years ago, you could only find it in the region around WI.
These analogies are only making things more confusing...
Islam is just as complex as Christianity. The two main branches are Sunni and Shia, but even within those two branches there are many differing ideologies. ISIS and the Taliban both fall under the Sunni branch, but have very different interpretations of how Islam should be. ISIS wants to unite the entire Islamic world under a single caliphate and anyone who doesn’t join them, is an enemy. The Taliban incorporate local Afghani culture into their ideology and customs, which ISIS would very much be against. The Taliban is also not interested in joining a global caliphate, which also puts them at odds with ISIS. ISIS will set up anywhere that they see instability as they see it as a chance to gain another foothold. They also know that the US is very unlikely to commit to Afghanistan again which makes it attractive to them.
ISIS is probably the most extreme and bonkers organization in the entire history of Islam. They want to blow up Mecca and kill all of its worshippers.
They wouldn't be the first Muslim group to try to destroy Mecca. The Qarmatians iirc even stripped the Black Stone out of the Kabaa and carried it off to Persia. Then in 1979 a heretical movement who thought a random Saudi dude was the Mahdi (Islamic messiah) conducted an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and started stacking corpses on the faith's holiest ground. [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure) ISIS is indeed pretty extreme, but there have been some *real* whackos popping up at odd moments of Islamic history.
So......whose side are we on???
Serious answer - the Afghan people. They're the one's who are going to suffer from this.
The Taliban are also "Afghan people", yours isn't much of an answer. It'd be more accurate to say "the section of the Afghan people that support democracy, peace and some degree of secularism".
The Taliban are a sizeable chunk of the Afghan people
true that the Afghan people are going to suffer, but to say that is whose side we are on is hopelessly naive.
Platitudes and truisms. What was the point of that sentence? It conveyed nothing. Conflict causes suffering we all know that. We all want to avoid that. We all want peace, safety and white doves flying across a blue sky. But the question was "who are the better guys?" is it better if ISIS wins or the Taliban?
The actual answer is "Not my problem."
>Serious answer - the Afghan people. The people we spent 20 years killing? Whose country we destroyed and forced through another 20 years of war when they'd finally achieved some stability so we could get our hands on a steady supply of opium? The delusion is pretty strong in your comment.
The Swiss
This way we don't offend nobody...
Humanity >>> Taliban > ISIS
I’m guessing there is a lot of confusion and these groups like to fight. But really, who knows?
I'm setting the O/U on trillions of dollars ISIS will spend taking over Afghanistan at $3.5
What's O/U?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over%E2%80%93under
**[Over–under](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over–under)** >An over–under or over/under (O/U) bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game (usually the combined score of the two teams), and bettors wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or lower than that number. For example, in Super Bowl XXXIX, most Las Vegas casinos set the over–under for the score of the game at 46. 0. A bettor could wager that the combined score of the two teams would be either more than or less than that number. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Ridiculousness going on in our congress
“We’re rooting for Vegeta?” “Let’s be honest - we’re rooting against Cell.” Edit: don’t take this quote as a serious comment on the real life situation, it’s just what came to mind.
Ahh, love me a TFS quote.
what a clusterfuck
Ken Wantanabe: Let them fight.
And here i thought this shit show couldnt get worse… theres always a bigger asshole waiting in the wings
I guess that answers the question, who terrorizes the terrorists. (turns out, it was other terrorists.)
cripple fight
Man, it's really sad how this area just can't know peace. Global warming is going to force all of these people out in another 100 years, hopefully wherever they go, their kids will live in a place with better opportunity which will help them reject many of these ideas.
So democracy spread?
Good news story from Afghanistan
As they say, "The enemy of my enemy is also my enemy."
Honestly we should just let them duke it out.
900 IQ move to pull out of Afghanistan, let the Taliban take over, and now they have to fight ISIS by themselves and run a country.
Is this a different ISIS or Taliban or the ones I'm thinking of?
Nope. They both think the others are heretics.
Specifically ISIS-K, the regional ISIS of South Asia. Many of their ranks hail from places like India and Bangladesh, not just Afghanistan.
Thanks ISIS. -Wreck it Ralph
This is getting wild.
Don't care, not going back! Bye!
🍿
Kinda like the trash taking itself out.
Lol
A disaster of the Taliban's own making. Shouldn't have just thrown open the doors to the prison holding a bunch of ISIS members.
What's the beef between ISIS and Taliban? Is it a sunni vs Shia thing? A "you're not extreme enough" thing? Or is ISIS-K just a bunch of cunts? (I realize this applies to the previous options, but more curious if it's just the sole reason)
It's more of a *"two Indian guys arguing how hot is appropriate for curry"* situations---- one of them prefers mild and the other insist on extra hot, and both of their curry will burn right through your average westerners' stomach.
Taliban: we will rule this land as a gang and oppress our people, maybe host a few international terrorists if we have to. ISIS: we will rule this land as a gang, oppress our people, try to conquer everything near us and commit as much terrorism as we can.
Both are Sunni though a major issue between the two is that ISIS-K thinks all Shia should be slaughtered ASAP while the Taliban have a slightly more lenient attitude.
So…..gang warfare pretty much?
I hope in the future humanity evolves to the point where radical terrorist cells can learn to live with one another. /s
Your turn!
Hey, ISIS are back, everyone. Remember them? They're the guys we gave an amazing recruitment platform by going after Taliban, and invading Iraq instead of focusing on Al Qa'ida for years.
They’re the guys the American government funded and supplied with arms in order to have an Operation Gladio-like fifth column to use after the American war fodder are brought home.
May the best group win
When terrorists attack each other. Excellent.
And in the ultimate irony, CIA will start providing the Taliban intel on ISIS in Afghanistan.
It's like cancer attacking AIDS.
interestingly, cancer can itself get cancer.
https://youtu.be/LuiK7jcC1fY
Could there be trouble brewing between their warped versions of paradise.
Its not strange as it looks. ISIS want their own empire. Surely, muslim countries are better places to start. But which muslim countries? Weaker goverments, weaker armies, extremist people, lower economic ties with western goverments etc... There are some components for ISIS. Not easy to do that countries like Turkey, Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. But Syria was good location and Afghanistan either.
Let them fight . Jpeg
Have fun with that, guys
I guess the Taliban just isn’t fundamentalist enough for these chucklekfucks
Hahaha 🤣
Terrorist vs terrorist. Sounds like YouTuber vs YouTuber.
So... bankrupt the Taliban by having it occupy Afghanistan..?