Afghanistan

Capability and location

 

There's a reason the tribes see off every attempt to oust them Pete, their location. If (I'm not certain) they're in same place then there's zip all chance of a western govt getting their grubby hands in them.

 

There are a large number of provincial warlords on top of the Taliban (which also made up of multiple arguing factions). To mine anywhere near any of them would require agreement and they can't seem to stand each other. The last two Afghan governments sidelined the warlords so that won't have helped.
The mountains and caves provide such good protection, no modern army can (yet) overcome the logistics of it so the tribes, Taliban etc are safe as houses.
No mining will be accomplished without multiple agreements in place and I fully expect any such agreement to be broken in short order due to petty squabbles, power mongering etc throughout all the local tribes.
It's just not a region that's easy to work in.

 

Oh I expect some MPs and their cohorts got very rich off the initial and subsequent decisions! That or just a misguided idea that got away from them and a huge lack of learning from history

 

I think it is time folks woke up and joined the dots to be honest - yes, there are multiple prongs to this, going back a very long way. Russia were in Afghanistan before the US/UK went in and they gave up because of the warring factions mentioned by @Loofah. We went in thanks to Blair and Campbell, illegally and despite the largest protests that the country has ever seen taking place on the streets. How Blair was not dragged up on war crimes and jailed is beyond me. He went on to create laws, one of which being the ability to rapidly enact actions that over-ride any other laws for an emergency or something that would endanger human rights. He also built up the Civil Service and other institutions and went on to work politically behind the scenes even after he left power. Everything that went on relating to us being dragged into this mess, including the death of Dr David Kelly has been locked away under the Official Secrets Act and will not be released for at least 75 years (guaranteeing that anyone who was old enough to remember it would be dead or at least in their dotage)

At the time, the US & UK were accused of yet another war for oil, which was robustly denied... but we were in there and in there for a long haul. Whatever we did do had to be done whilst applying Western democracy and standards - so human rights were high on the agenda, and that in short meant that the natural resources would never be released until The Taliban and ISIS (all splinters of each) were erased... never going to happen. Meanwhile, China strengthened itself, starting by selling cheap plastic tat or copies of branded goods at stupidly low prices to the rest of the world. It then rapidly graduated to building stuff to quite high specifications for the big brands from Japan, the UK, the EU and so on. Bingo. China was getting richer and richer and us mugs were lapping it up. China got so strong and so productive we even let them in on our infrastructure - Huawei in our telecoms was only one example, with them being involved in nuclear power and transportation too.

The Western world then took a bit of a Conservative turn - Trump got into the White House and we got Cameron etc. Trump saw what was happening with China, didn't like it (mostly on the side of money/economics) so imposed tariffs on trade with China which enraged China. He also successfully negotiated with North Korea and managed to get Kim Jong Un to at least stop his sabre rattling. He even started a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan, albeit slowly and with it being very clear that The Taliban had to behave or he would pull the plug and go back in.

The UK invoked Brexit and left the EU; during all of the discussions that went on the spectre of Huawei raised its head and Boris & Co pulled the rug out from under them and started to take their equipment out of our infrastructure. We were also on track for a rapid hook up on trade with the US that Trump was going to sign - then the elections came along. Just before the elections came along however, China released Covid-19 upon the world. This virus has been stated by numerous doctors/professors as having a make-up that can only be man made, and was designed to mutate. It originated in Wuhan where there just happens to be a lab that was working on modified/synthetic viruses, which China subsequently tried to cover up by lying and of course the lab just happened to catch fire.... accidentally.

Biden is cosy with the Chinese, very cosy. Biden was desperate to be President - Kamala Harris couldn't stand the man and even made allegations against him, but the machine did its magic and got him into office with Harris (even further left than Biden) as VP. Harris got a tiny fraction of votes, yet she is in as VP with a man that she was on record previously utterly slating. Ask yourself why.

The Chinese want the resources that are in Afghanistan - be it Lithium or oil based, they want all of it. The Chinese don't give a monkeys about human rights, so will happily let The Taliban do what they want and they will get their resources whilst supporting The Taliban in their barbaric ways, even if that is only by turning a blind eye. George Floyd/BLM is also embroiled in all of this - BLM being a Marxist political organisation (stated by their values on their own website); they created chaos following the death of George Floyd, and essentially made the man a saint. A man who was a rapist, druggie and had even been charged for holding a gun at the stomach of a pregnant woman. But hey, let's use his death and lets push BLM... an extreme left, terrorist organisation that wants to defund police and kill capitalism.

Russia is sitting on the sidelines as they are cosy with the Chinese to some degree (similar regime) so anyone that wants to go back into Afghanistan is taking them on as well as China.

The UK has became ever more liberal and soft (anything for a quiet life really) and we've seen circa 10-12 million people from various countries of the world move in here. Many of us can remember when a mosque was a novelty - now, they are commonplace. Rather than allowing the various religions to be practiced but at the same time making those incomers fall into line with our values and traditions, we actually went the other way and eroded our own traditions and ways of life lest we cause offence to someone from another religion. Meanwhile another extreme left (should be classed as terrorist) organisation, Extinction Rebellion also started to cause mayhem. Another organisation that wants to kill capitalism. Boris, being the wishy-washy idiot that he is pandered to all of this, mostly because he was being led by a certain part of his anatomy.... Mrs Johnson being very liberal, green and floating in circles that are not unconnected to the likes of the Rothschilds and Soros.

When all is said and done, this boils down to the old left versus right, red versus blue routine and of course money and greed.

The UK has disappeared up its own backside and has pandered to various organisations and if you dare to speak out against them you are a bigot, a racist, gammon and so on. Whilst equality and an equal world is exactly how it should be, we have lurched so far left now (especially in the past 2 years) it is frightening. Racism is once again allowed in this country, as long as you are directing it against white, heterosexual people. We ban adverts for burgers on the tube but allow people to dance around in the streets of London in broad daylight with dildos attached to their clothing. Its all fine in the happy-clappy world that these folks live in. Oh, and we've now had it mandated that we will go headlong for electric cars and abandon heating our homes with gas. Scientists/doctors/professors that dared to speak out with views other than the accepted view on Covid were not shouted down, they were silenced. Banned from giving their point of view. Removed from social media, banned from mainstream media and in many cases sacked. A number of 'conspiracy theories' keep coming true..... mandatory mask wearing was never going to happen, but it did. Mandatory vaccination or vaccination passports was never going to happen, but it is slowly being implemented.

China is lobbing coal fired power stations up faster than we are building houses, with factories following on behind. They want resources, they want people and they do not give a toss who dies in the process. People like Blair, Johnson, Biden, Harris, Bush and even the Clintons don't give two hoots as they are absolutely loaded and will be looked after once they leave power, and that money comes from the trillions of dollars of resources that are in places like Afghanistan.

 

That's one of the reasons that I don't read papers. As with a lot of things, it's difficult to work out whether the media people are blowing their own trumpet, pushing their own ideas, reporting truthfully (probably an oxymoron), just not got all the info or not bothered to find out etc.

I have much too much going on to bother with what they say.