Tight minge

The whole defence procurement is a maze and over pricing common place. Offsetting helps feed the gravy train and is an amazing/shocking initiative.

The US hardly care about their own troops despite all they say. They really have a Gungho attitude. Profit before protection.

Not sure if it is needy, insecurity or something else, but this isn't a good look for yourself. You are tolerating all this shit by staying with her and your final sentence speaks more about yourself than her. I think you should be rejoicing that you are back (present tense not future) in the dating game after this. You need to look at yourself first and what you want from a partner/relationship and why. Maybe the above is very harsh, but wake the f**k up. People that know you and the relationship won't be thinking look at red23 with that exotic bird, they will be scratching their heads and laughing thinking there is something seriously wrong with you. If you don't like the above, you can dismiss it as some troll on the Internet, if it strikes a chord get the psychotic, racist to f**k. *If not before, the meal in the Asian restaurant should never have finished. You should have got up and walked out immediately at that point and left her sitting there.

Enjoyed this like all Rober Harris a books, but thought something was missing. Reading laterly that it was written in a short period of time during lockdown which may explain it. Still good. Added this to my list go read as the area, as I see, spans from India to Indonesia sounds interesting for myself. Will see how it goes

Your showing your age now. Don Muang is a ‘domestic/low cost’ airport now. Go through it every so often. Yes some of the regional airports in Philippines are cool, same with the wife's local airport in Indonesia. Handful of flights a day, next to no security and not a care in the world. Coolest airport for me is Songshan in Taipei. Now cursing Covid while thinking about this

Yes Hong Kong is/was hugely efficient and a cracking train into the city. The ferries and back from Shekou we're also great. Singapore is amazingly efficient. Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, not so much Although the old airport was pretty cool.

If needed I could leave the house about an hour before for an international flight (all are international) and make it. Coming home from when I stepped of the plane, I could be in the house in 30-40 minutes. Absolutely spoilt. When living in Indonesia the 40 minute drive and could take up to 4 hours and there was little rhyme of reason to how long it would take. That was a nightmare.

He seems a complete bellend and lacks the understanding, as you say being ex-military, of the whole scenario, never mind the support he has picked up. I would hazard a guess that every plane and helicopter landing and taking off around there will have a DAS/DIRCM and the pilots, ATC, ground crew well versed in this kind of operation and he is planning in having a charted flight pop in during the middle of it. Also his message to the Taliban was absurd. The support he has got is astounding.

This whole scenario is mind boggling and the arguments of seats and hold space is kind of irrelevant considering any flight would take a precious take off and landing slot of another rescue flight (which I would expect would have larger capacity for people) never mind consuming other resources.

Understand fully. I have never signed one of these before and was a little surprised by the donation part at the end but by passed it as it's not relative to this scenario. Charities, donations, how money is distributed is for another thread!

Yes there is a parliamentary petition which would be a better forum maybe, but this was running and over 100k signatures. Frankly making donations isn’t going to do anything just now as time is not a friend for these people. If at least its something carrying a hefty amount of signatures that is a reference point it's the best that anyone can do for now. Other than call the government the c***s of the day. Maybe make you feel a little better about yourself before heading to the football.

https://www.change.org/p/save-british-council-educators-from-the-taliban Worth taking a few minutes of your Saturday morning?

Unfortunately, I completely agree with you. It’s what should happen but won’t.

A tragic state of affairs. Hopefully the people you haven't heard from are avoiding any possible incriminating communication and as you say ‘lying low’. The reporting of teachers by students isn’t much of a surprise. Considering it's likely there will be no more intervention, the UK should be doing everything to get everyone associated to them out without compromise.

Well the Kuwatis for sure . As said, I only have hazy memories of that time as I had other youthful priorities, just seem to remember a stumbling block of the US led coalition needing to campaign for more ‘local’ support to make it truly realistic and an initial hesitance from Saudi to allow the coalition to position troops there, the final decision being hugely unpopular. I vaguely remember the news reporting the what if scenario that the coalition would need to undertake if they didn’t get troops onto Saudi soil or the backing of the other nations, which probably would have been a preferred option for some ‘politicians‘ and outsourcing contractors. Trying to stretch my memory back did remind me of something else, which has been touched on by others on this thread. Latterly, around the time of the Iraq (2) war I was involved around the defence industry. The cost of the locally sourced fuel from Kuwait to the troops stationed in Iraq by the outsourced contractors was significantly more than the internal cost of transporting fuel by the US military, even to places like Alaska. The profiteering and corruption was unbelievable.

I don’t recall, and could probably be wrong, that the Middle Eastern countries asked the US to sort the Kuwait invasion. If I recall the US had to do a fair bid of campaigning to get these states to support and participate. Regardless, your point still stands. There is a huge reluctance for the neighbouring countries to intervene in issues on their doorsteps for many differing reasons and that should be noted. Same as the number of refugees the Middle Eastern countries took in during the Syrian war. As for Saudi, it is not just oil and arms that the west cannot take any significant action and Saudi is a huge destabiliser. It is a hugely complex mess, that we seem, sometimes through that oil fuelled, clouded judgement you mention, that we can resolve. I think for all these conflicts in the region, this is probably quite apt: If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat

As said, a deep understanding.

Yes, agree with that. Wholly this idea from Ad Lib that you can go from A - Z immediately without milestones, concessions and humility is absurd and his deep understanding of Islam that makes him know what is best for Muslims.

You have some reading comprehension issues. You have some comprehension issues. You have some issues.

Absolutely so much in a few paragraphs. The humanitarian effort should always have been about the immediate needs of the victims not some Utopia. Driving out the Taliban clearly had to be done, but then helping the locals get back to some form of normality that they want and they recognise and most of all they accept should have been the key. I have little doubt that most troops on the ground would have been trying to achieve that. After that the troops should have left but humanitarian efforts continued. This would have made it much more difficult for the Taliban to return imo. The Taliban play on fear by violence and a distorted view of Islam. We in some form removed the fear by violence, but we did not get the ‘reading of the room’ when it comes to faith (and the general expectations of the majority of the people) that has been a massive plus for the Taliban. The aim should have been for recognised and acceptable normality as the starting point. Our prolonged stay and our vision of what Afghanistan should look like was counter productive. No matter what the west done we would always have been the outsider, with outsider ideas and a fact that the Taliban would manipulate with every misguided idea. The borderlands for the Taliban was the countryside where most Afghans live. To be out there telling a most likely poorly or uneducated farmer that he is doing his life wrong and he must change is tantamount to being a modern day missionary. Giving him the vote, as mentioned before, although good, is nothing, means nothing at this point. I would hazard a guess that the average Afghan would not be setting his sites on his daughter going to university or having equality and the thought of that today would be questionable. The average Afghan would probably want his daughter to be safe and secure and married to a supportive husband within the local and religious values he holds dear and despite us not fully agreeing with that we should accept that at this point. Going out there and helping him get his life into the order he wants, working with the imams and village elders to achieve this and biting our tongue when we have a conflicting view that could cause harm and/or offence, or guiding them to the right conclusion when it may be non confrontational to do so. Grand dreams don’t happen over night and acceptable millstones should be in place especially when the progress change is so huge. Cities and countryside everywhere is hugely different and more magnified in developing countries. All the developments in Kabul count for little if the majority of the population is outside it unless you built a wall. All that we created was a have and have nots and the Taliban could sail through the have nots without resistance, leaving Kabul exposed. The idea that the west knew Kabul would fall is an admission of their f**k ups, how quickly it fell shows how much they fucked up. To go back and repeat is stupidity and a huge amount of human suffering. The more we pushed our ideas onto the population no matter how right we believe we are, the more we allowed the Taliban the ability to walk back in. If the left of the scale is moderate Islam and right of the scale is Sharia Law, where does the western, Christian based value sit? Not on the scale at all. The west need to move the scale first, get it to the left first, then….. Otherwise the west will always be wrong at the ‘baseline’. It takes multiple generations to change ideals. I have huge respect for Jinky here, not that he was in the army, but the fact he recognises human suffering and the needs of individuals. Governments could have done better if they had listened to stories from first hand experience first and formed their policies to accommodate the needs of the poor. Being humble and willing to learn from anyone, even an Afghan farmer, is something of huge value than considering your values are unequivocal.

Your only protecting the values that you want to protect and demonise any you don’t. Your whole solution is flawed, would never work and would have no benefit to the Afghans or any country sending occupying forces. I am afraid we are a ling way away from having a global utopia.

Polygamy in Islam generally doesn't work like that, so you would be against it. It is only an example point though. As @Left Backasked where would you draw the line? For Islam I think you would disagree with many, many practices. Enforcement, Yup Not letting the Taliban take over. No matter how much people don't want this. At this point until there is legal precedence (which is probably not that far away to be honest), we shouldn't/can't do anything, or again we are forcing our 'values'. As soon as there is legal precedence and this time a plan, and with all due respect, not your plan, by all means back in to remove them. It doesn't matter what you believe is a legitimate belief. It is what that person believes. Not all Muslim woman wear the Burka, Hijab or follow Islam because they are forced to. There are people in this world that are not Taliban but chose to live under Sharia Law. If you are going to change someone's mind by force, you have lost. Progression takes time, a lot of time and effort. I didn't touch on the LGBQ, good luck trying to change a mindset on that oppressed group in many parts of the world.

Can you define ‘vast swathes of the Muslim world’? More than a quarter of the world recognise polygamy as a legal right. Nothing to discuss on Sharia Law, it is abhorrent and most Afghans wouldn’t want it. Most would want to live there life by their values and beliefs. Again, you want to force your values on people. Enough for me now.

Therefore you are forcing your belief (whether right or wrong) on people and you expect to succeed (with a military force to back you)? Sorry, but you are completely deluded in your thinking. You were advocating before to @Left Back about not imposing western democracy, but you want to cherry pick the rights and beliefs you deem acceptable by a western standard. You are as well have an invasion force and send in the missionaries to knock sense into these backwards people? What you want is certainly worthy, but they are many milestones to achieve along the way.

Thats fair, but then you are not putting a foreign military force in place for the benefit of the local people. Your putting it in place to enforce your own beliefs on a population that doesn’t generally care for these beliefs at this point. I do not say your intentions are not good and true; women should equal, but you cannot easily change this way of thinking/life. If it were that simple, the Taliban would not have been able to breeze back in.