Are the issues with the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and the Middle East solvable?

[Physics-Man]

Yes

No

Other

[nightdrot]

The question covers a very broad range of issues, some of which are solvable, some not - and some not even related to each other. Given that, I voted "other." It also being an undeniable fact that in an imperfect world of imperfect beings not every problem has a solution. Some problems are just difficulties that must be managed as best they can.

That said, the most fundamental flaw in the premise of this question is the equivalency it implicitly attributes to the Middle East and Afghanistan. Although they have some commonalities - most notably the Islamic religion - they are very different places.

Afghanistan is essentially a tribal society whose sense of national identity is weak. Afghanistan was at its most united under the monarchy in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Even then, the monarchy did not serve so much as a unitary entity as a more or less neutral arbiter, whose acceptance was implicitly agreed by all the country's various tribal factions, between those factions. With the collapse of the monarchy, itself a complex story, the thin bonds holding Afghanistan together fell away.

By contrast, at a very fundamental level, the problem in the Middle East is not a lack of identity, but overlapping and competing identities. The Arab world is Arab, is Muslim, and is the various national-states drawn by the Ottoman Empire - itself Turkish, not Arab, and then the European colonizing powers, plus various tribal groupings within those broader identities.

Into which was inserted a Jewish state after WWII in a region that the Arabs regarded as fully their own - though in fairness the ancient Jews arrived in the region about 2000 years before the first Arabs arrived. Add in then to all of this, splits in the Muslim religion, the predominant one being between Sunni Muslims - who are mostly but not exclusively Arab, and Shia Muslims - who are mostly but not exclusively Persian, plus various minor sects such as that which dominates the Sultanate of Oman.

Also, some Arab states are monarchies of an absolutist variety. Some republics. Some mere anarchy. Democracy popping up here and there, but nowhere the predominant form of government and the cultural prerequisites necessary to democracy are rather thin on the ground.

The above listing just the most basic differences between Afghanistan and the Middle East, as well as within Afghanistan and the Middle East respectively. This then providing the fertile soil in which terrorism is born. Governments lacking firm popular legitimacy, because such legitimacy is difficult, at least, to establish, in regions where the sense of cultural affinity and thence political loyalty is problematic.

Though it is perhaps worth noting that the most stable regimes in the Middle East are monarchies. To be sure, those monarchies are hardly of the democratic constitutional variety to be found in Europe and Japan and some parts of Asia - and the Commonwealth.

CONT.

[nightdrot]

However, societies with their historic - and indeed in some cases prehistoric - origins in a narrow sense of tribal identity find connection to a common family to be an acceptable arrangement consistent with their own values. Though, to be fair, it also cannot hurt that - with a few exceptions, see also Jordan - by chance the monarchies happen also to be often oil rich. Such wealth helping to grease the cultural skids and thereby reduce conflict and assuage grievances before they can fester into violence.

Suffice to say, the list goes on. Can some of these issues be "solved"? Yes, see the relative stability of the Sunni Arab monarchies. Noting that it is a relative stability. (The 9/11 terrorists were of Saudi origin, after all.)

However, such problems and grievances, as the litany above suggests, are neither simple nor clear cut, and thus there is not likely to be any resolution of them. Excepting perhaps over a very long time horizon. Even then, it is worth noting that one of the sources of terrorism from the Middle East was born of the Sunni-Shia divide - and that only goes back to 632 AD.

Best not to expect a resolution then of these questions any time soon. Time, as the old saw has it, may heal all wounds, but that does not mean it does so quickly.

[hellionthesagereborn]

Yes of course. The issue is that we need to fix a lot of problems first. One, we need the US to get off the petro dollar because that is the reason why we are involved in the middle east to begin with. We force other nations to buy saudi oil because saudi arabia has a deal where they will only sell it for US dollars which keeps our currency afloat (its probably the only thing keeping us from total collapse right now honestly).

This would not only remove us as a military presence in the middle east which is used to justify much of the aggression there, it also would mean we no longer have to play favorites (Saudi Arabia is just as likely to fund terrorist as any other group in the middle east but because we have this deal we have to call out every one but them which in turn breeds more hatetred and resentment).

Then we need to find a way to stabilized things politically long enough to get a good economic system going. Almost all discontent has to do with economics and politics. The politics make things unstable which leads to power struggles which leads to violence which in turn damages the economy and ratchets up tension. If you can find a way to stabilize the politics long enough to get the money flowing, that would ease tension and that in turn would help alleviate those power struggles because if your content your not going to jump on board with another groups desire for power which would weaken the terrorist organizations.

So it can be done you just have to do so in the right way.

[Anonymous]

I watched a something a while ago about the situation there and it really made it clear that there is no kind of solution coming any time soon.

One of the major problems, as it was presented to me or as I took it was that these places are so different to what we are used to in the Western world. There is no infrastructure, barely any roads even. There is simply no central control what so ever, no justice, religious dogma is as close as it gets.

So you have the bands of wanna be soliders who extort what they need from peasant farmers who have little themselves and as if that wasn't bad enough it turns out that if they didn't exist there would be no justice of any kind, no dispute resolution beyond i guess whatever you can force yourself, which is clearly not easy for most.

There is literally hundreds of years of work which would need to be done building these places up into functioning states and Im not even sure its even being addressed.

The oil will run out first, when that happens outside states won't be interested in it anymore it will only be the religious angle but I dont see that changing either, the main weapon against religion is education and what hope is there for any kind of real education in a place like that?

So I think its just going to go on in one form or another for a really, really long time.

Seems like Africa will advance far more so and we will probably end up with like literal sand people raiding and scavenging what they can from their neighbours after the oil money is gone.

Its already the ass hole of the world but I dont see how things can get anything but worse.

[Dragonpurple]

Sure, the US needs to get energy independent, like Trump was moving us to... so we don't have to import their oil and then leave them alone. Most the problems have happened due to the oil, bet you anything if the middle east had no oil, nobody would care what happens there.

I remember when the US did a drone strike on a suspected terrorist and accidently killed a entire wedding party... well I wouldn't be surprised if the survivors became terrorists that they created from that.

Many of the issues seem to be self created by the west, especially the USA.

[ChrisMaster69]

Not really.

however for Afghanistan everyone is watching what the Chinese will do.

the majority of the mines in Afghanistan (and Africa) are either Chinese owned, back and or protected.

Even when fighting was at its highest, no mine workers or mining facilities covered by the Chinese were touched.

Pitting the Taliban against the Chinese and their treatment of Uyghurs, will be an interesting concept. Until Iran and Saudi (or rather Sunni and Shia) can live in peace the entire area will be a war by proxy…

at present the proxy wars are West v China / Russia, and Iran v Saudi

Another unknown in a lot of this is Pakistan, hard to say which way they will go.

Afghanistan, Pakistan are very tribal along the NW frontier (North-West Frontier Province), this is likely to be a hotspot, as NWFP has wanted independence from both. It’s also always been a buffer zone as those living in that area are very good fighters.

[KimmyKimmy]

No, I don't think anything can be done to stop them. But I was flabbergasted to hear today that Biden is sending 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to help get our folks at the embassy out. What? Why in the fuck do we have an embassy there, and why weren't they evacuated months ago?

I'm sure it won't be long before we're sending troops to Iraq to evacuate that worthless embassy.

[tartaarsaus]

Sure. Lots of terrorist groups can simply be squashed with military means.


With respect to these more structural terrorist groups, the answer always lies in the institutions of the country. Better institutions improve the economy and that mitigates the appeal of any such group.

[DaveToo]

Afghanistan and every other country in the Middle East are and have always been, fighting against itself for longer than any other ethnic group in the world. They will continue to kill each other in a religious ethnic cleansing. Once they have succeeded in destroying every other religion in their region, they will go after the other countries in their scope. Nothing we can do to change that, nothing we can do to ease the pain. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years and accomplished nothing.

[Avicenna]

No, you can't negotiate a durable agreement with terror groups.

[andreasderjuengere]

Of course.
Let nobody from there enter our own place.
Soon, nothing will be left moving over there.

[Anonymous]

1. Stop stealing their resources
2. Stop bombing their children and families that have nothing to do with the war
3. Give back reparations for all the resources taken so they can develop.


At the very minimum, that’s what we can do to help them.

[iBeowulf]

1. Do the opposite of what this guy said.

[Opinion Owner]

You realize we destroy culture

[iBeowulf]

We're in a defacto matriarchy and anthropologically speaking, matriarchal societies are necessarily primitive, in accordance with Briffault's law.

[Goforit1010]

I voted no, but the answer is actually YES. You, and most of the world's population won't like the WAY that it can be "fixed".

[EmbraceThePain]

Solvable? Yeah.
I don’t think we are using the most effective methods perhaps.

[Jerre]

Muslims have been fighting for 2,000 years and will continue for another 2,000 years.

[cth96190]

The only way to solve the problem is to apply a Final Solution.

[rcljr]

Yes, 4 or 5 well placed high yield nuclear warheads will solve the Middle East problem permanently.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

President Biden is sending 3000 troops back to take out the Taliban

[Anonymous]

Not as long as there are fucked up crazy ass God Damn Muslims. If you stop the fucked religion you can stop the God Damn problem.

[iBeowulf]

Eww, no.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, just kill them all

[888theGreat]

A nuke

[Anonymous]

Neutron Bombs