Taliban to Start Talks With U.S. and Afghan Government

Yeah totally agreed, hence why I said stereotypically middle eastern. But I'm guessing that's what he meant.

Guys most Afghans and Pakhtuns from Pakistan look that way.

Light skin, eyes and similar features.

I would not be against the assumption thats why they used that photo but the more reasonable one is that the haunting look in the child's eyes is quite heart-breaking. Its just a very good photo.

But a substantial amount of the population look that way in featurettes.

Iranians are stereotyped as Arabs too, which we are not. Iran is in the Middle East; but it not an Arab country.

Doesn't really matter to me at the end of the day. But these miscategorizations happen all the time. These classifications are mostly weird anyhow. They cause more division than unity.

google tells me Iranians are Persians (Farsi)

so which countries are Arab then?

i would presume Arabs are people who speak Arabic.

yes despite many invasions,Iranians always kept alive their original culture and they are proud of it ( and they've not "forgiven" to Arabs the Persia invasion in VII century). The modern Persian name of Iran means "the land of Aryans", so as to underline the distinction with others peoples of Asia. Similar with Romanians who , surrounded by Slavic, are proud of their Latinian legacy
However Iran differs from the surrounding Arab world not only in language, culture and ethnicity but also in religion: while the majority of the Arab people are Sunni Muslims, in Iran the dominant religion is Shiism.
So never call them Arabians.
Same for Turks.
Many Turks consider themselves superior to the Arabs. Not by chance  the Ottoman Empire dominated the rest of the Muslim peoples.
So Arabs are the inhabitants of Arabia and more generally all those  state that have the  Arabic language as their mother tongue.
So  North Africa ( Algeria, Tunisia, Marocco, Egypt..) , Arabian Peninsula , western  Asia

Iranians have persian heritage. Turks have seljuk heritage, coming from the region now known as Turkestan they conquered big territories and eventually converted to islam. Both these people speak their own language, they keep independance vs arab influence.

Even the north africans they are not ethnic arabs, it is mixed with berber culture. Some 2nd generation immigrants will refer to themselves as "reubeu" or "rabza" which means arab, well they are muslims who speak arabic. My algerian/moroccan buds, if you call them arab they won't mind, but they'll specify they are in fact berber or kabyle.

Arabs are from the arabic peninsula. But it seems accepted to call arabic speakers arabs or so it seems, since the language is not dead and is prevalent in islam. Unlike latin which is a dead language, you'd never refer to an italian or a french as latin.

interesting... thanks for the knowledge Robes and Warrior

same with those folk who can speak Arabic in South Africa... they're usually just called and thrown under the "Indian" category in South Africa, although many of them have varied roots from all over the Arabian peninsula and Indian subcontinent.

El Gunner wrote:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688

Why is this guy literally dying in prison ???

absolutely mind-boggling situation....8 years in hiding in embassy, gets arrested on basis of tweeting policits (in reality Ecuador sell him out for some IMF money) and then gets sent to highest security prison in UK probably with some pedophiles and gang members...and now almost 2 years there with no news about trial, sentence, extradition, nothing.

basicallly just being rotted to die.

Zagadka wrote:

El Gunner wrote:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688

Why is this guy literally dying in prison ???

absolutely mind-boggling situation....8 years in hiding in embassy, gets arrested on basis of tweeting policits (in reality Ecuador sell him out for some IMF money) and then gets sent to highest security prison in UK probably with some pedophiles and gang members...and now almost 2 years there with no news about trial, sentence, extradition, nothing.

basicallly just being rotted to die.

Absolutely disgusting turn of events in Afghanistan. In German, there is a saying "vor die Hunde geworfen" (thrown to the dogs to be mauled to death). The west or what's left of it did it to the Afghans. I'm sad, angry and disappointed at the same time.
Taliban promised general amnesty, in reality, they want to keep people in place who colaborated with the previous Afghan government and the western "allies". The execution of those people and their families has already started. They go from house to house killing, raping etc. The Afghan minority, Hazara, is being targeted for looking Asian. Anyone who looks Asian regardless of whether they belong to Hazara and belong to the Shia confession is detained.

Lots of fake outrage and media show.

Explain to me how Taliban is any different than Saudi Arabia with their Western sponsored kings and sheikhs?

Sharia law? Check.
Stoning to death? Check.
Decapitations? Check.
Whipping homosexuals? Check.
8 year old girls marrying 60 year old dudes? Check.
Making minced meat out of a NYT journalist? Check.

Oh, wait, they are buying Western weapons and delivering oil to our conditions, so Saudis are our buddies.

Carry on with "won't any of you think of the poor Afghani women and girls".

lol

Saudi Arabian regime and Taliban are very very different dude.  Not saying Saudi Arabia is "better".  But it's comparing apples to oranges.

Women's rights are, in fact, getting somewhat better in Saudi Arabia.  Just read this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

At least they have rights in Saudi Arabia.  For the Taliban, women are basically cattle. I don't like the Saudi regime at all (and I mean AT ALL) for the record. But i think the Taliban is far far worse.

I realize that the withdrawal (which is still ongoing, btw) could have been executed better (don't think it was anticipated Afghans would give up immediately)

But am I crazy or is it kinda ridiculous Biden is getting absolutely slammed (by liberal leaning media too lmao) for doing the...correct thing? Bush, Obama and Trump all took the easy way out. Biden is getting fucked for making the tough decision.

Certainly deserves some criticism, but this seems super asymmetric. Let me know if I'm wrong

He didn't do the correct thing though.  The correct thing was to plan a coordinated withdrawal with cooperation and coordination among all allies and the Afghan government.  Figure out a timeline and milestones to meet that timeline

This unilateral decision to leave and the arbitrary timing of the withdrawal were complete incompetence and, frankly, a crime.  We betrayed everyone who worked with us (yet again).

Biden is an incompetent fool and he's showing it every day.

CBarca wrote:I realize that the withdrawal (which is still ongoing, btw) could have been executed better (don't think it was anticipated Afghans would give up immediately)

But am I crazy or is it kinda ridiculous Biden is getting absolutely slammed (by liberal leaning media too lmao) for doing the...correct thing? Bush, Obama and Trump all took the easy way out. Biden is getting fucked for making the tough decision.

Certainly deserves some criticism, but this seems super asymmetric. Let me know if I'm wrong

Certainly didn't do the correct thing.

Basically what's Sports said

Biden is getting slammed for his incompetence, not for the decision to get out (which does have broad support). He literally said "there is no way this is going going collapse from over a few days" just a month ago. He didn't prepare and has caused incalculable human suffering.

And there were parts of the government that believed a collapse would be inminent. Biden's team just didn't pay them attention.

Plenty of blame to go around. Biden is to blame but also the intelligence unit etc. "We didnt know the Afghan government would fold so quickly" is a bad, bad excuse. Those are words of a senior intelligence official. Amateur stuff.

A swift taliban takeover was very probable and that should've been a no brainer for the units on the ground in Afghanistan.

So idk if Biden is to blame for this personally a 100%, he might have been misled by intelligence officials who, for some reason, assured him it would take weeks/months for the taliban to take over

I guess I'll wait until the evacuation is over before passing a judgement on the overall success or failure.

@Robe, I’m def not Arab, past my great grand parents they only speak berber and both my parents are originally berbers. Don’t really mind just wanted to correct you.

Afghan is a tough issue. Easy to say we could’ve done it right. But that country is as tribal as it gets.. and the Afghan government was doomed from the start with how corrupt it was.

futbol wrote:Lots of fake outrage and media show.

Explain to me how Taliban is any different than Saudi Arabia with their Western sponsored kings and sheikhs?

Sharia law? Check.
Stoning to death? Check.
Decapitations? Check.
Whipping homosexuals? Check.
8 year old girls marrying 60 year old dudes? Check.
Making minced meat out of a NYT journalist? Check.

Oh, wait, they are buying Western weapons and delivering oil to our conditions, so Saudis are our buddies.

Carry on with "won't any of you think of the poor Afghani women and girls".

lol

You can kindly take your Whataboutism and shove it up your ass, friendo.
We're all perfectly capable of being angry at the West, the Taliban AND Saudi Arabia at the same time, thankyouverymuch.

I've never seen the Saudis being praised on this forum. We have one guy who is a huge fan of Azerbaijan, but of the Saudis? Not seen it, mate.

CBarca wrote:I guess I'll wait until the evacuation is over before passing a judgement on the overall success or failure.

You would have to argue pretty hard to paint a total capitulation and the immediate victory of the Taliban upon the US retreat as a success.

It was not thought through, done extremely poorly, and now so many people will suffer. Things have to be done correctly.

VivaStPauli wrote:

futbol wrote:Lots of fake outrage and media show.

Explain to me how Taliban is any different than Saudi Arabia with their Western sponsored kings and sheikhs?

Sharia law? Check.
Stoning to death? Check.
Decapitations? Check.
Whipping homosexuals? Check.
8 year old girls marrying 60 year old dudes? Check.
Making minced meat out of a NYT journalist? Check.

Oh, wait, they are buying Western weapons and delivering oil to our conditions, so Saudis are our buddies.

Carry on with "won't any of you think of the poor Afghani women and girls".

lol

You can kindly take your Whataboutism and shove it up your ass, friendo.
We're all perfectly capable of being angry at the West, the Taliban AND Saudi Arabia at the same time, thankyouverymuch.

I've never seen the Saudis being praised on this forum. We have one guy who is a huge fan of Azerbaijan, but of the Saudis? Not seen it, mate.

Weird post by fussball indeed, aint nobody praising the Saudis on here

CB in the mud, can't believe the man he voted for has done this

Pedram wrote:On the Afghanistan issue, hosts of the Chapo Trap House pod said it perfectly, Biden was the perfect guy for this withdrawal and the ensuing quagmire. This guy has been taking L for his whole goddamn life. he's 78 years old and at the end of his career, can you imagine someone else doing this and having a career after it?

It had to be Biden, somebody had to finally pull the plug on this mess and nobody was willing to do it because they knew exactly this would be happen.

Withdrawal had no alternatives long term. The issue is the way USA went on about it. Instead of a step by step withdrawal and giving Afghan forces/institutions more and more responsibility over time, they just wanted to vanish over night.