Afghan War ending, foretold by The Onion 10 years Ago [DT thread ruined by politics]

[phdhorn 6224]

9 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

The influence and money will come from China, Iran, or both. It's gonna be fucking bad.

I think people who were too young to remember the peak of the "Islamic Terrorist Era" from about '93 to '05, or think it's an irrelevant part of history, are about to find out that it's going to ramp up again.

This is far, far worse than Saigon because the PAVN/North Vietnamese govt. at least was more interested in getting the country unified and didn't kill off relatively that many people (sent them to "re-education camps") but these guys... right now they're all smiles and "oh gee, we're not like those guys 20 years ago, we're much more evolved!"

Yeah, we'll see once they have laid down their cultural blanket for good.  Lotsa women going to get raped, killed, and/or yanked away, trafficked and married off to Taliban big shots.

Edited August 16, 2021 by phdhorn

[Captainant 27685]

7 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

The influence and money will come from China, Iran, or both. It's gonna be fucking bad.

Really fortunate we haven't been going out of our way to renege on all of our diplomatic agreements with both of them in recent history. That'll make any future peace talks MUCH easier amirite???

[brakeman 28393]

[Nivek 16946]

SIAP, but this is a great read on all the underlying reasons this went south so quickly. 

Article
and the thread it came from. David Tracy is a great follow if you are a Jeep/wrenching/automotive geek.  
 
 

That is useless. A statement that they were useless isn’t helpful. Where is the what went wrong, how do we fix it/learn from it?

[pyrohornIII 4816]

50 minutes ago, Captainant said:

That would have required work from the last admin to make sure that such a complex thing could be handled while we're in the midst of the worst global pandemic in a century. We sorta went the wrong way with respect to helping those who helped us. It'll go over GREAT next time we need help from locals

Kurds.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

I don't buy the revisionist history that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden if we stopped the bombing/invasion in 2001.

The best I can read is that the Taliban offered to talk about it which they later denied. The talking part was that they required proof that Bin Laden was guilty. Bush is on record stating that we would stop the invasion if Bin Laden and all of AQ in Afghanistan were handed over. Since that never occurred, it bs that the Taliban acted to turn over OBL.

I'm not saying that the Taliban all loved and supported OBL. I have no idea.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Nivek 16946]

This mistake has been on-going for a generation, to blame it on any one person or party is fucking regarded.  We ALL own this shit. 

I take no responsibility at all.

[wildcat09 29357]

49 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Hey there's plenty of blame to go around, but Mr. Biden could have said we're staying for a while, and started the process.  

Biden inherited an agreement with the Taliban to have troops out in May. In exchange, the Taliban agreed not to attack any US forces. We were already pushing things extending the withdrawal to August. Had Biden repudiated the agreement entirely, the Taliban would've gone back to attacking US forces and we'd be seeing dead Americans. 

I think the Pentagon and the administration shit the bed on this, but there were no good options, only some less horrible (to most Americans) than others. 

[hpslugga 4062]

 

9 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I don't buy the revisionist history that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden if we stopped the bombing/invasion in 2001.

That’s not revisionist history. That was what was being reported even at the time. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

That article is from 7 days after the bombing began.

Edited August 16, 2021 by hpslugga

[52-80 19205]

10 minutes ago, Nivek said:

What does an orderly exit look like?

I dunno, how about pulling the estimated 16,000 American civilians (excluding 4,000 embassy employees) home BEFORE the date you yank the troops.

Or you could just wait until the local overrun the airports and burn documents while the taliban are at the door while the commander in chief is on his summer vacation...

Edited August 16, 2021 by 52-80

[babysdaddy 2725]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

Biden inherited an agreement with the Taliban to have troops out in May. In exchange, the Taliban agreed not to attack any US forces. We were already pushing things extending the withdrawal to August. Had Biden repudiated the agreement entirely, the Taliban would've gone back to attacking US forces and we'd be seeing dead Americans. 

I think the Pentagon and the administration shit the bed on this, but there were no good options, only some less horrible (to most Americans) than others. 

The Taliban had already violated the agreement so Biden was within his stance to delay and we hadn't had any dead soldiers since early 2020.  Regardless, I'm glad we are out of that shithole.  They way we are doing it is an abject abortion.  

[Aqua Buddha 14599]

30 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Part of the problem was the Trump draw down to 2500 was not going to be enough for the Spring offensive.  Biden was either going to have to send in troops or leave. He chose the latter. 
 

His fuck up was listening to the chucklefucks at the Embassy and State who thought the Afghan government could hold on for 12 months instead of just assuming worst case scenario. 

This.

The people wondering why he didn’t evacuate sooner don’t understand that a mass evacuation would have triggered this as well.  

[52-80 19205]

You know, we could severely cripple the global insurgent capabilities if we could just get Toyota to stop producing those Hilux trucks.

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

12 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Really fortunate we haven't been going out of our way to renege on all of our diplomatic agreements with both of them in recent history. That'll make any future peace talks MUCH easier amirite???

Save it for the politics board, Captain taint.

[Starfleet Command 441]

13 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Does the timeline really matter though?   I mean whether it took 30-90 days or 30-90 minutes for Kabul to fall it was going to happen either way and people would bitch about it no matter how quickly it happened. We may have messed up the pullout at this point but it was bound to be a shit show no matter what we did and the Taliban were going to regain control.  I feel bad for the people of Afghanistan but let’s remember that there are countries where people are treated like crap by brutal regimes all over Asia, Africa, South America, etc… and we unfortunately can’t invade all of these countries and get rid of the bad guys either.  The world has some evil people that gain power and do evil things and you can’t just blame the United States.  Not that we don’t do bad stuff also and screw things up diplomatically sometimes but Afghanistan falling to the Taliban is not the United States fault.  If we never went in 20 years ago I am guessing the Taliban would have been in power for the past 20 years and still going strong.

It just illustrates, to the US' chagrin, the absolute and total failure of Karzai's government.  20 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives spent to build a government that instantly collapses when the supports are removed.  That is what is so incredibly embarrassing for the US.  

[Homercles 10206]

This is an unbelievable shitshow.  The videos I’ve seen of crowds running with a taxiing C17 and kids clinging to / falling from the MLG is absolutely tragic and a complete stain on the US.  In addition it is humiliating to our dedicated military, coalition partners, contractors and afghans who have sweat, bled and died for two decades there.  
 

There is no one singular source of blame for the decisions and events that have got us here.  However I am going to actually put my money where my mouth is, and lay blame for this acute symptom of a chronic condition on the Biden administration.   This is a completely inept lack of preparedness, contingency planning and execution at all levels of our government.  
 

There is a distinct possibility that we will be negotiating with taliban and see live video of them escorting our citizens out of the country.  It’s scary to think that the only remaining airport is now legit closed, with thousands of people and millions in assets with no capability to leave the country…I’ve seen Apaches skimming taxiways to herd people off the flight line…how they hell do we get those out of the country except heavy lift?

 

We may have to drop in some special ops guys or even have 75th Rangers legit execute their core role of an airdrop to secure an austere landing strip…just to give us somewhere to fly the helicopters and people out via air bridge.  All in a country we were assured was reasonably secured a week ago.  

[David Dennison 18939]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Hey there's plenty of blame to go around, but Mr. Biden could have said we're staying for a while, and started the process.  

He did.

[SuperSport 1333]

Dumb question amnesty, as I admittedly gave up trying to follow all this 10+ years ago...

I thought our stalemate (or whatever you want to call it) was due to Taliban scattered to the wind and/or holed up in caves throughout the Hindu Kush. With the abundance of news about their forces advancing and retaking cities over the past few days, wouldn't that provide some prime, out-in-the-open airstrike targets? Have we abandoned offensive measures, are they marching with women/children human shields, or...?

Edited August 16, 2021 by SuperSport

[Captainant 27685]

4 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Save it for the politics board, Captain taint.

My dude, you wanna bring up other adversarial nations funding of smaller adversaries in response to our nation's actions against them... Can't have your cake and eat it too

[wildcat09 29357]

Just now, Starfleet Command said:

It just illustrates, to the US' chagrin, the absolute and total failure of Karzai's government.  20 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives spent to build a government that instantly collapses when the supports are removed.  That is what is so incredibly embarrassing for the US.  

We like to install corrupt puppet regimes that can help our operations in the area but can't stand on their own without our support. What happened is what has always happened because we're never actually interested in nation building, even when that is ostensibly what we're there to do. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

8 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

 

That’s not revisionist history. That was what was being reported even at the time. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

That article is from 7 days after the bombing began.

Wrong. Your own article just says the Taliban offered to discuss it if Bush stopped the bombing.  And they only would agree to hand over OBL to a 3rd country not the US. Something tells me that they didn't mean Canada. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

12 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Biden inherited an agreement with the Taliban to have troops out in May. In exchange, the Taliban agreed not to attack any US forces. We were already pushing things extending the withdrawal to August. Had Biden repudiated the agreement entirely, the Taliban would've gone back to attacking US forces and we'd be seeing dead Americans. 

I think the Pentagon and the administration shit the bed on this, but there were no good options, only some less horrible (to most Americans) than others. 

And I get plans were made, but did this or any Admin. really think the Taliban wasn't going to go after anyone who worked with the Americans ?  It doesn't seem we made any contingency plans to help those people. 

[WhatTheBuck 28793]

59 minutes ago, Telegraph_it said:

Correct. Obama administration drew down forces from 100,000 to 10,000 without announcing a deal or anything with the Taliban. 

He also oversaw a surge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

More recommended reading:

[Bateshorn 9928]

2 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

You know, we could severely cripple the global insurgent capabilities if we could just get Toyota to stop producing those Hilux trucks.

They should include a domestic emissions waiver so we can import manual diesel Hilux as well. 

[wildcat09 29357]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

And I get plans were made, but did this or any Admin. really think the Taliban wasn't going to go after anyone who worked with the Americans ?  It doesn't seem we made any contingency plans to help those people. 

That's where I think they fucked up. I think too many people bought into the bullshit from the Pentagon and/or the State Department that the Afghan regime would actually hold up for at least awhile after we left and give us time to get everyone we wanted out in an orderly manner.

I don't think many people in DC are capable of honestly and accurately assessing our capabilities when it comes to training up armies and helping stand up democratic governments in other countries. We invested a shitload of money and resources into a big damned Afghan national army, but never asked ourselves why they would bother fighting for a corrupt government when we were gone.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

He did.

And also said July 8 that you wouldn't see Saigon type airlifts from roof tops.

[David Dennison 18939]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

And also said July 8 that you wouldn't see Saigon type airlifts from roof tops.

Of course. He's a politician. No one believed that. This is going exactly how anyone who knows anything about Afghanistan expected. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

That's where I think they fucked up. I think too many people bought into the bullshit from the Pentagon and/or the State Department that the Afghan regime would actually hold up for at least awhile after we left and give us time to get everyone we wanted out in an orderly manner.

I don't think many people in DC are capable of honestly and accurately assessing our capabilities when it comes to training up armies and helping stand up democratic governments in other countries. We invested a shitload of money and resources into a big damned Afghan national army, but never asked ourselves why they would bother fighting for a corrupt government when we were gone.

How did the military intel miss this so badly ?  I never had much hope for anything other than a rapid fall to the Taliban, who are the only military force that will actually fight and fight to win in a country (using that term loosely ) of mercenary, military allegiance, traditions.

[David Dennison 18939]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

How did the military intel miss this so badly ?  I never had much hope for anything other than a rapid fall to the Taliban, who are the only military force that will actually fight and fight to win in a country (using that term loosely ) of mercenary, military allegiance, traditions.

Intelligence knew exactly how this was going to shake out. If they say otherwise, they are lying.

 

 

[Starfleet Command 441]

9 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Wrong. Your own article just says the Taliban offered to discuss it if Bush stopped the bombing.  And they only would agree to hand over OBL to a 3rd country not the US. Something tells me that they didn't mean Canada. 

They likely would have given him to the Saudis, as they offered to do in the 90s.  They wanted to get rid of him. for years.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Starfleet Command

['stache 21825]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Hey there's plenty of blame to go around, but Mr. Biden could have said we're staying for a while, and started the process.  

It was an impossible situation and no administration could have done this “the right way.” So yeah they all bungled it as that was the only possibility. On that basis, I think you can place most of the blame on the administration from 2002-2003 that thought it was a good idea to “install democracy” in a place that didn’t want it and couldn’t support it if they did. All administrations thereafter had this clusterfuck to deal with and there were no right answers. It’s tragic that people will suffer under the taliban, but it’s happening all over the world right now, we can’t fix everything, and it’s not our job. Also, there is disease and starvation everywhere that we could solve almost entirely with the type of money we spent in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. I’d much prefer winning those fights.

[Aqua Buddha 14599]

16 minutes ago, Homercles said:

This is an unbelievable shitshow.  The videos I’ve seen of crowds running with a taxiing C17 and kids clinging to / falling from the MLG is absolutely tragic and a complete stain on the US.  In addition it is humiliating to our dedicated military, coalition partners, contractors and afghans who have sweat, bled and died for two decades there.  
 

There is no one singular source of blame for the decisions and events that have got us here.  However I am going to actually put my money where my mouth is, and lay blame for this acute symptom of a chronic condition on the Biden administration.   This is a completely inept lack of preparedness, contingency planning and execution at all levels of our government.  
 

There is a distinct possibility that we will be negotiating with taliban and see live video of them escorting our citizens out of the country.  It’s scary to think that the only remaining airport is now legit closed, with thousands of people and millions in assets with no capability to leave the country…I’ve seen Apaches skimming taxiways to herd people off the flight line…how they hell do we get those out of the country except heavy lift?

 

We may have to drop in some special ops guys or even have 75th Rangers legit execute their core role of an airdrop to secure an austere landing strip…just to give us somewhere to fly the helicopters and people out via air bridge.  All in a country we were assured was reasonably secured a week ago.  

This.  We haven’t even talked about how we’re going to evacuate the very last military personnel and equipment.  This could get ugly fast.

[Aqua Buddha 14599]

9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

That's where I think they fucked up. I think too many people bought into the bullshit from the Pentagon and/or the State Department that the Afghan regime would actually hold up for at least awhile after we left and give us time to get everyone we wanted out in an orderly manner.

I don't think many people in DC are capable of honestly and accurately assessing our capabilities when it comes to training up armies and helping stand up democratic governments in other countries. We invested a shitload of money and resources into a big damned Afghan national army, but never asked ourselves why they would bother fighting for a corrupt government when we were gone.

Same thing happened in Iraq.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Same thing happened in Iraq.

Bush I did it to the Kurds.

['stache 21825]

I haven’t kept up entirely with this, but is there any indication that the military we supposedly trained was full of taliban spies or sympathizers? I just can’t imagine this without a large scale refusal to fight. Almost seems that this is what the people we trained want to happen.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, 'stache said:

I haven’t kept up entirely with this, but is there any indication that the military we supposedly trained was full of taliban spies or sympathizers? I just can’t imagine this without a large scale refusal to fight. Almost seems that this is what the people we trained want to happen.

It's a land of mercenary tribes. Of course it was full of Taliban members, and members of tribes willing g to sell their allegiance for a goat, and a hand full of young boys.

[Goredho 17413]

4 hours ago, aggie08 said:

Excellent post. Thank you. I've come around to the philosophy that it's not our job to play world police in shitty countries, but saying, "Some countries don't want democracy, and that's their right" is usually a simplistic way of saying that they want to continue treating women as horribly and unequally as possible.

Well, our nation has been able evolve to a relative equality among citizens (compared to Afghanistan) mostly without intervention.  Where there was violent intervention (the civil war) we are still dealing with the effects of that 150 years later — and the intervention was internal.

It’s really naive to think we are going to go in as an outside occupying force to remake a society in our democratic image with freedom for all and have it endure.  Hell, it’s an open question whether it’s going to endure here.  The only reason it has endured to now is because our people fought for it and erected it of their own volition.

That isn’t the way things should be, but it’s the reality of the world.  It’s the reality of human nature.  Nation building is a sham and the next politician to call for it needs to be immediately kicked hard in the taint.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

7 minutes ago, Starfleet Command said:

They likely would have given him to the Saudis, as they offered to do in the 90s.  They wanted to get rid of him. for years.

Then why didn't they expel him? Stop with the false narrative that the Taliban didn't support OBL and AQ. There is no evidence of that and overwhelming evidence that they did by allowing him to remain in the country.

The best you have is that the Taliban offered to talk about it if the US first stopped the bombing. And let's say you're right in that the Taliban would agree to letting OBL go to SA. That is supporting him.

[David Dennison 18939]

1 minute ago, 'stache said:

I haven’t kept up entirely with this, but is there any indication that the military we supposedly trained was full of taliban spies or sympathizers? I just can’t imagine this without a large scale refusal to fight. Almost seems that this is what the people we trained want to happen.

I saw someone on television make a salient point about the Afghan Security Forces. They are not ideologues. At the end of the day, it's a job and they just want to go home to their families. Conversely, the Taliban are fighting for a cause. Their motivation for fighting and dying is much different.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Then why didn't they expel him? Stop with the false narrative that the Taliban didn't support OBL and AQ. There is no evidence of that and overwhelming evidence that they did by allowing him to remain in the country.

The best you have is that the Taliban offered to talk about it if the US first stopped the bombing. And let's say you're right in that the Taliban would agree to letting OBL go to SA. That is supporting him.

Yep,and it was all just lies.  They have no qualms lying to the infidels.

[WhatTheBuck 28793]

45 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Actually on Instagram. They cite the WSJ & Daily Mail as the original source... https://www.instagram.com/p/CSj2h72FcnB/

I don’t subscribe to WSJ so if you could c&p the text of their article, that would be appreciated. Daily Mail? They’re a tabloid but if you could post the link then that would be helpful. I don’t have an Instagram account and can’t see links to either in their web interface. I checked Daily Mail and didn’t see anything about it on their front page. 

[6th Street 6443]

There are parts of the world that just can't be saved - Haiti, El Salvador, Yemen, North Korea, South Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, Myanmar, and yes Afghanistan. The humanitarian issues there are magnified because they're on the front page of CNN. But in reality what we see in Afghanistan is. not entirely different than in other regions either rife with perpetual civil war, warring tribal factions, or brutal dictatorships.

[David Dennison 18939]

1 minute ago, 6th Street said:

There are parts of the world that just can't be saved - Haiti, El Salvador, Yemen, North Korea, South Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, Myanmar, and yes Afghanistan. The humanitarian issues there are magnified because they're on the front page of CNN. But in reality what we see in Afghanistan is. not entirely different than in other regions either rife with perpetual civil war, warring tribal factions, or brutal dictatorships.

Colonialism has left a trail of devastation.

[Message Board User 12395]

You have got to be shitting me…

 

[ouflak 60]

I'll just post this and take my lumps (or be completely ignored). But I think everybody and anybody blaming any U.S. executive is missing the point by an astronomical unit. The only way to put something in that country that is stable and friendly would be to:

1. Eradicate entirely the culture of corruption, including the expectation of such, from all public life.
2. Have all changes and institurions established by the people themselves from the ground up - not based on some super power that can call air strikes in on anybody who gives them any trouble.

Without both of those being thoroughly accomplished, no president administration, no chancelor of < insert European country >, no dictatorship of the proletariat, no shah/khan/ayatollah of a neighboring country, nobody from the outside is ever going to march into Afghanistan and 'win'.

[Dirk X West 772]

Not that it's the most important factor here by any means, but the GOP hive mind/propaganda machine has clearly pivoted from "immigrants are causing the COVID surge" to "Biden messed up Afghanistan" as their primary social media focus.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

2 minutes ago, ouflak said:

I'll just post this and take my lumps (or be completely ignored). But I think everybody and anybody blaming any U.S. executive is missing the point by an astronomical unit. The only way to put something in that country that is stable and friendly would be to:

1. Eradicate entirely the culture of corruption, including the expectation of such, from all public life.
2. Have all changes and institurions established by the people themselves from the ground up - not based on some super power that can call air strikes in on anybody who gives them any trouble.

Without both of those being thoroughly accomplished, no president administration, no chancelor of < insert European country >, no dictatorship of the proletariat, no shah/khan/ayatollah of a neighboring country, nobody from the outside is ever going to march into Afghanistan and 'win'.

China likely will have something to say about that during the next 20 years.

[Bateshorn 9928]

3 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

China likely will have something to say about that during the next 20 years.

The Chinese will show up looking for minerals with a big predatory loan package.  And I expect their interaction with Afghanistan will end just as badly. 

[Chad Fuck 17697]

China likely will have something to say about that during the next 20 years.

I agree. They don’t have the same moral qualms about eradication that we do.

[Aqua Buddha 14599]

22 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I saw someone on television make a salient point about the Afghan Security Forces. They are not ideologues. At the end of the day, it's a job and they just want to go home to their families. Conversely, the Taliban are fighting for a cause. Their motivation for fighting and dying is much different.

I also saw where a lot of the Army hadn’t been paid and had little or no food.  The leadership was pocketing all the money.