Current affairs - Afghanistan

As I write this (early on the morning of Monday 16th August, 2021) the Afghan government is on the brink of falling to the Taliban. This after twenty years of the forces of many countries, under the UN umbrella, attempting to support a democratic government in that country. I will not pretend to have any insights about what can be done. As a supporter of Scottish independence I support the right of any country to chose what path it wants to follow - but there are limits to anything and allowing a brutal, despotic regime to gain power is one such exception. The swift advance of the Taliban over recent days would suggest that this organisation has the support of the Afghan people - but it is more likely that such a violent and oppressive force is winning this fight simply because it has the guns - and is willing to use them. The US troops had the guns and, along with the UK and other countries, had kept the Taliban battened down hard - not totally but sufficiently so to restrict the areas they controlled. With the US and the UK withdrawing, just about the only guns left are those in the hands of the Taliban.
As I said, I have no revelatory insight to propose - but I do have a few observations.
Over the past twenty years, thousands of soldiers from the US, the UK and other countries have been injured, maimed or killed, all in attempting to prevent the Taliban regaining power. The injuring, maiming and loss of life suffered during this period by the citizens of Afganistan must also be kept in mind. This swift withdrawal of troops, especially the US troops, has allowed the Taliban to do just that - and that makes all those sacrifices nothing but a pointless waste.
These days it is often wise to take everything read or heard with a pinch of salt but the Taliban, if we are to believe all we are told, is a brutal organisation bent on following an extreme version of Sharia Law - with forms of punishment that no humane, civilised people should ever accept. The fact that their God demands this only shows the type of God they believe in.
The Taliban severely restricts the freedoms of those subject to it - especially women. What is about to happen to the people of Afghanistan is little more than a crime against humanity. I am no great lover of military force but there are situations where armies are needed to defend otherwise undefended citizens. This is one of those situations and the whole world should be ashamed about the way the people of Afghanistan are being abandoned to this brutal and violent organisation.
We also, however, need to keep in mind that the US did not go into Afghanistan to kick the Taliban out because of the way it treated it’s own citizens - it went into Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda, based there under the protection of the Taliban, and to capture Osama Bin Laden, then execute him without trial and dump his body at sea. The US was initially only seeking revenge for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, and the US lives lost there. So, hoping for a humanitarian response from the US (to anything) is more pointless than a fish with a bicycle.
With the Taliban back in power in Kabul, I fear we can, despite anything agreed in the recent talks, only expect them to provide a safe haven for the remains of Al Qaeda and IS. That can only lead to increased terrorist attacks throughout Western civilisation - and that is only likely to result in the troops being sent back in to oust the Taliban, once more. I see no natural end to the number of Muslims deciding to follow the extreme, fundamentalist version of their religion in the near future, so the only way to reduce continued terrorism is to prevent any such organisation having any power or safe territory to operate in. It would have been costly to keep troops in Afghanistan indefinitely - but it could well, in the long run, prove more costly taking them out. Then again, I suspect that Western interference in Muslim countries is at least one factor in the growth of those extreme beliefs - and sending the troops back into Afghanistan is only likely to maintain this flow of support into the likes of the Taliban.
There is, of course, a solution to this repeated cycle of violence: we all become Muslims and accept the judgements of Sharia Law. Any volunteers?

Post Scrip.
Only a couple of hours after my earlier post about the Afghanistan situation, I switched on my TV to discover that Kabul had indeed fallen to the Taliban. No surprise there given the speed of the Taliban advance.
What I would like to correct about my earlier post was my statement that, following the departure of US and UK forces, only the Taliban had the guns. This is not the case as the Afghan army also had weapons and, it’s claimed, a large enough army to defend the country. The problem is that they did not even try to do so. Why might that be the case? Well, either the army leaders were totally incompetent or neither they nor the ordinary Afghan soldiers wanted to fight. Why might that be? Well, I suspect they either supported the Taliban or knew it would eventually triumph and that the consequences of resisting might not go well for them, individually.
I should also say that maybe we have to wait and see if the Taliban have changed compared to twenty years ago. I have my doubts about that.