There's A New Biscuit In Town! (Called The Taliban Biscuit!) by Alfred N.Muggins

Now at the end of August (or the middle of September) there’s a new biscuit in town! Taliban have taken over pretty much the whole of Afghanistan by their wily dedication and tenacious bloodthirstiness. They have clawed themselves back from the deserts and the mountains, refusing to ever give up the fight. It’s a very hard biscuit and not at all to Western tastes. It’s not even clear whether the Chinese will like them? (do they even like biscuits?) Or the Russians. (it seems most unlikely that they will ever come back to Afghanistan to trade for any more biscuits (All they got in their rations in the end, was Afghan dust, dead flowers, and lots of scrapped tanks, and more than a few bloodstains!)

The Americans and their allies are (supposed!) firstworlders, softies all at heart. They don’t want to start any more wars, they don’t even want to fight this one, or finish it properly. They just want to get out as fast as possible now. Its already been decided by Trump, “We’re getting out!” Biden likes the idea, can’t spoil the plan now, now they are so nearly out of it all. Wash your hands, oh wash our hands of all of it. Extraction is the order of the day. We don’t care any more. We’ve done everything we could! We’re a long way past caring now. No more nation building for the good old USA. It’s time to heal our own wounds, and stay home for a change! Let someone else be the policeman of the world. It doesn’t matter who.

I know let’s create a gap in responsibility, let the Afghans sort themselves out, i.e. let the Taliban take over if they want it! If they can’t rise to the occasion and do the job, it might just be best for Afghanistan, if not for the supporters of the old government or the soldiers who fought for it, or the informants and interpreters who helped the foreigners, or the ladies who had hopes of leading or at least participating in their society! Or those who want to watch what they want on Television, and play on the internet, for those who like music and want to hear it performed or replayed, or indeed those who want to be free to practise or interpret their own religion their own way. Or the many families who have fled their home regions for the erstwhile (ephemeral?) ‘safety’ of Kabul.

Who’s going to be the next policeman nation of the world. Will it be the costcutting and reluctant to spend European Union, but they are now without Great (Not so?) Britain (so who’s going to do their fighting for them now?). Boris might just do a Churchill and turn the whole situation around, or even better a Thatcher and fight a war with one hand while cutting the armed forces with her other! But the Falklands generation are out of it now, and they’re a lot softer, and even Prince Harry’s buggered off, because someone else is pulling his strings!