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

[David Dennison 17,660]

The political fallout from this will be minimal. The administration knows that.

Americans are done with this war.

[DDD Dad 14,060]

 

 

 

[Aqua Buddha 13,905]

 

[Royalfan5 2,197]

As bad as the collapse has been, taking the long over due L on this was needed. By taking the L we can start moving ourselves forward finally, and maybe not rush ourselves into another trap.

[WBT 20,132]

7 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I bet the R’s start to campaign on going back to war in Afghanistan and their base will eat it up.

No they won't and no they wouldn't.  No one wants to be there any more.

[Js1 82,370]

1 minute ago, Royalfan5 said:

As bad as the collapse has been, taking the long over due L on this was needed. By taking the L we can start moving ourselves forward finally, and maybe not rush ourselves into another trap.

['stache 21,490]

9 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

As bad as the collapse has been, taking the long over due L on this was needed. By taking the L we can start moving ourselves forward finally, and maybe not rush ourselves into another trap.

Yup. I was an econ major and still work somewhat in the field and study it often. I just can't get over the opportunity costs. What could we have done the last 20 years with all that money? We could have saved countless lives with simple disease and hunger initiatives without needing bombs or other war machines. Afghanistan has been a lost cause since the 70s, at least. There are horrible situations going on everywhere. Afghan people will suffer. So are Uighur Muslims in China, and countless people in Africa. We can't solve all problems worldwide. If we're gonna spend that kind of money for humanitarian efforts, lets focus on food, medicine, clothing, housing, education, etc., the things that can actually help third-world countries without war.

Edit to add that one thing we can do to help the Afghan situation, and others worldwide, is wide and robust refugee program for people to settle in the US. Make the burdens minimal. The only thing I care about is ensuring that we stop people from entering with bad intentions, and that number can be higher than zero if it helps the vast majority of people who need refuge.

Edited August 16, 2021 by 'stache

[Foosters 17,624]

2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Yup. I was an econ major and still work somewhat in the field and study it often. I just can't get over the opportunity costs. What could we have done the last 20 years with all that money? We could have saved countless lives with simple disease and hunger initiatives without needing bombs or other war machines. Afghanistan has been a lost cause since the 70s, at least. There are horrible situations going on everywhere. Afghan people will suffer. So are Uighur Muslims in China, and countless people in Africa. We can't solve all problems worldwide. If we're gonna spend that kind of money for humanitarian efforts, lets focus on food, medicine, clothing, housing, education, etc., the things that can actually help third-world countries without war.

America is ruthlessly efficient at imprisoning people and waging (not winning) war. Those are honestly the only things we excel at.

[Js1 82,370]

13 minutes ago, WBT said:

No they won't and no they wouldn't.  No one wants to be there any more.

We won't go back.

Congressional Rs will go full Benghazi though if they take back the House and try to derail Biden 2024 for this.

[Born to Run 6,186]

Yup. I was an econ major and still work somewhat in the field and study it often. I just can't get over the opportunity costs. What could we have done the last 20 years with all that money? We could have saved countless lives with simple disease and hunger initiatives without needing bombs or other war machines. Afghanistan has been a lost cause since the 70s, at least. There are horrible situations going on everywhere. Afghan people will suffer. So are Uighur Muslims in China, and countless people in Africa. We can't solve all problems worldwide. If we're gonna spend that kind of money for humanitarian efforts, lets focus on food, medicine, clothing, housing, education, etc., the things that can actually help third-world countries without war.
Edit to add that one thing we can do to help the Afghan situation, and others worldwide, is wide and robust refugee program for people to settle in the US. Make the burdens minimal. The only thing I care about is ensuring that we stop people from entering with bad intentions, and that number can be higher than zero if it helps the vast majority of people who need refuge.

we could have easily unfucked central america.

['stache 21,490]

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

We won't go back.

Congressional Rs will go full Benghazi though if they take back the House and try to derail Biden 2024 for this.

They'll surely try, but I don't think it'll work. Stats were posted somewhere above, 70+ % wanted to end this quagmire, including majority Republicans, including the trumpkins who know exactly what he said about the situation. In some alternative timeline, this might be the issue that gets a majority of republican voters to see what spineless, valueless, positionless people their current representatives have become and finally turn back to the center. That timeline won't be ours, unfortunately.

[Tuco 5,003]

What frequently gets lost in these discussions is that we are way too focused on the US element of it.  There was an article today that talked about how the Taliban had retaken Kabul "20 years after US troops had driven them off."  That is fucking nonsense.  US troops didn't invade Afghanistan. US troops didn't drive the Taliban out of Kabul.  Does anyone remember the Northern Alliance?  They did the heavy lifting.  We supplied them and bombed the shit out of their adversaries, but we had a relatively trivial ground force at the time, fewer than 300 troops on the ground, per Bob Woodward's Bush at War. 

Why is that important?  Because if you are going to talk about the success of the Taliban you should probably asked what they hell happened to their main opposition, the opposition which prevented them controlling all of the country even prior to 9/11, prior to the US giving them anything. 

Well, perhaps instead of worrying about which US President to blame, we should discuss the Afghani President and how he fucked up support from the Northern Alliance factions.  

From an WaPo article a couple of weeks ago.  

Full article in the spoiler.  

Spoiler

After the United States and NATO began their final withdrawal in mid-April, the Taliban made advances in more than 100 districts, mostly in the north. The swift Taliban takeover of large swaths of northern Afghanistan stunned the Afghan public — and Washington. The Taliban now controls at least one-third of the country’s 400 districts, leaving many wondering if the Kabul government will fall.

The rapid collapse of the north is surprising because this region was a stronghold against the Taliban during its previous reign from 1996 to 2001. Yet, shortly after the July departure of most U.S. and NATO forces, much of the region fell to the militant group.

Why did the Taliban target the north, and why did it fall so quickly?

This was a calculated move

Capturing the north is a psychological blow to the government and constrains the Northern Alliance, a U.S.-allied group of warlords from this region that began fighting Soviet troops who invaded in 1979. The Northern Alliance was the most important source of resistance against the Taliban in the 1990s.

From a strategic perspective, this move severs the Northern Alliance from its traditional areas of domestic support and isolates the region from supply lines to Central Asia. This allows the Taliban to pressure larger population centers by threatening to cut them off from imported food supplies. And access to customs checkpoints gives the Taliban sources of revenue it can use to sustain its military campaign.

Although northern Afghanistan was relatively peaceful for many years after 2001, instability skyrocketed after 2014 for several reasons. First, 2014 marked the U.S. and NATO transition from combat operations to “advising and assisting” the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF). At the same time, a major military campaign in neighboring Pakistan pushed Pakistani Taliban groups out of their country and into Afghanistan’s northern province of Badakhshan.

Why did the north fall so easily?

These new groups who came to the north sought to transform the Taliban from a Pashtun-majority group to one that could attract non-Pashtuns as well. For years, Afghanistan’s multiethnic north, consisting primarily of Tajik, Uzbek and Turkmen groups, resisted the Taliban, which began as a largely Pashtun movement. As the new groups moved in, this changed and more non-Pashtuns joined the Taliban.

Simultaneously, the north witnessed a rise in religious radicalization. For example, in the northern city of Kunduz an all-women’s madrassa preaching values sympathetic to the Taliban operated in broad daylight.

Third, in 2014 there was a hotly contested election between President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, a Northern Alliance leader. Pashtuns supported Ghani, while northern communities stood behind Abdullah. The campaign period featured accusations of corruption, often along ethnic lines.

To resolve the electoral impasse, Secretary of State John F. Kerry brokered a political deal between the rivals, making Ghani president and Abdullah the “Chief Executive Officer.” The tense campaign and unclear roles created acrimony between the two leaders, fueling ethnic tensions across the country.

In Afghanistan’s 2019 election, a rematch between Ghani and Abdullah, these tensions continued. But many Afghans had become disillusioned with politics — and fearful about Taliban threats to disrupt the election. Only an estimated 19 percent of eligible voters turned out. A reelected Ghani moved to weaken his perceived rivals in the north, effectively sewing discord and creating an opening for the Taliban to exploit.

A heavy hand undermined confidence in Kabul

In addition to well-chronicled corruption, the government’s heavy-handedness, along with perceptions of ethnic and regional favoritism, undermined trust in Kabul. This opened fertile ground for the anti-government insurgency to grow in the north. Afghanistan’s highly centralized governance structure, which gives citizens little voice over local appointments or policies, compounded the discontent. The Taliban capitalized on these grievances by promising a more equitable system based on Islamic principles.
Ghani continued to consolidate power over his Northern Alliance rivals, many of whom maintained independent militias operating closely with warlord governors who are appointed by Kabul but have wide latitude to make local policy. Under one such governor, Attah Mohammed Noor, the northern province of Balkh and its capital, Mazar-e Sharif, transformed into one of the most prosperous parts of the country. To achieve this, Noor eschewed Kabul and pursued a more localized economic development strategy.

In 2017, Ghani fired Noor as governor, leaving the northern part of the country on the brink of civil war. Noor eventually resigned, but not without a standoff that almost led to military conflict between the government and commanders loyal to him.

This year saw violent protests in Faryab province, along Afghanistan’s northern border with Turkmenistan, after Kabul appointed a Pashtun from eastern Afghanistan as governor. Last month, shortly before the Taliban swept the north, there was a protest in Badakhshan. Government troops fired on protesters demanding electricity and clean drinking water, wounding 41 and killing five.

Is the future of Afghanistan in the hands of the Northern Alliance?

A humanitarian crisis has engulfed the north. According to the International Office of Migration, almost one-third of the population had migrated or was internally displaced because of fighting since 2013. In recent weeks, the Taliban marched across the north, promising safe passage to troops that surrendered. Many ANDSF units surrendered without fighting.

A northern stronghold gives the Taliban extraordinary bargaining power in negotiations with the government. If the Taliban continues to control roads in and out of large cities, they may be able to weaken urban resistance. Control over roads became even more important after the Afghan government lost much of its U.S. air support.

The remnants of the Northern Alliance are remobilizing under an umbrella it is calling Resistance II. Ahmad Massoud, the son of famed commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, is raising an army to defend northern towns from the Taliban. Resistance groups in Herat, on the Iranian border, are also fending off Taliban advances.

Ironically, the political survival of Ashraf Ghani may depend on the resurrection of the Northern Alliance as a fighting force against the Taliban — the same group Ghani spent years weakening.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili (@jmurtazashvili) is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Center for Governance and Markets. She is co-author, with Ilia Murtazashvili, of “Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan” (Cambridge University Press, 2021); and author of “Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan” (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

TL, DR:  In 2014, the Presidential race was between Ghani (Pashtun) and Abdullah (supported by the North).  Ghani won a tight race.  He then started undermining his opponents, including firing a popular governor in the North, replacing him with a Southerner.  In the attempt to consolidate his control of a US-propped up government, he inadvertently undermined and alienated the significant factions who were otherwise inclined to oppose the Taliban.  Now he is the President of jack shit.  So, when assigning blame, let's just all agree to say "fuck President Ghani" before worrying about Trump or Biden.  And if there is a lesson there for America, it's that power over the government is pointless if the country goes to shit. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Tuco

[Js1 82,370]

Ok but do I say "fuck President Ghani" before I say "fuck Bush/Cheney" or after? 

[52-80 18,963]

not fucking here, thats for sure

 

 

[MC Fresh Breath 4,074]

7 hours ago, Telegraph_it said:

 

Reminds of the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary that showed similar stuff as the US left.

[Starfleet Command 441]

38 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

 

Sounds like we cut a deal to build some new pipelines and to keep the heroin flowing.  The things that matter.  

[Tuco 5,003]

5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Ok but do I say "fuck President Ghani" before I say "fuck Bush/Cheney" or after? 

It matters what you are addressing.

The waste of money and American lives - Fuck Bush and Cheney, and also Obama and John Kerry.  Decide the percentages for yourself. 

The fact that the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan - Fuck President Ghani. 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Tuco

[Starfleet Command 441]

lmao

 

[Muy Frio 182]

From what I’ve read a simple way to have made this all go smoother would’ve been to wait to pull out during the cooler months. Evidently half the year it’s too cold for massive mobilization of forces like the Taliban just did. Looks like we have a lot of posters who did tours over there that could fact check that. 

[Muy Frio 182]

Also looks like China jumping on this 

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1427267130467119104?s=21

 

[Starfleet Command 441]

It is so wild how disassociated actual policy is from what's discussed in the media from both GOP-leaning and Dem-leading media outlets. 

What likely happened here is that the Trump/Biden admins were finally able to secure an agreement with the Taliban that safeguarded the US' most important interests in the region (continued opium production and the construction of pipelines by Chevron/UNOCAL), making it unnecessary for the US to continue propping up a deeply corrupt, ineffectual, and unpopular government.  Why not take that deal if you're the US?  It would be dumb not to.  Because we can't discuss stuff like this in the major media, we have to instead portray this as another falling of Saigon moment which each side GOP/Dem will litigate for years.

From February:

Quote

A Taliban delegation has paid a surprise visit to Turkmenistan to pledge support for a planned natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan, providing welcome reassurance for a project whose viability has long been rendered doubtful by security concerns.

Signs point to the trip having been brokered by the U.S. government, which has long championed what is known as TAPI, named after the four countries the pipeline would cross: Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban’s Qatar-based negotiation team, told reporters in Ashgabat on February 6 that his movement was offering “full support for the implementation and security of TAPI and other developmental projects in our country.”

Shaheen explicitly addressed the most commonly aired worry about the prospects for TAPI by assuring his hosts that not only would the project not be targeted for attacks, but that the Taliban was committed to ensuring its safety.

“We are trying to contribute to prosperity of our people and development of our country by providing protection to all projects,” Shaheen said in English, reading from a written statement.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/02/10/taliban-vows-to-guarantee-safety-of-trans-afghanistan-gas-pipeline/

[David Dennison 17,660]

It's best to ignore the horse race bullshit coming from the mainstream media.

[brakeman 28,040]

10 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Reminds of the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary that showed similar stuff as the US left.

[TXSG8R 3,325]

4 hours ago, Nivek said:

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?

Did you read the linked article?  It goes into a lot of details on what was wrong. This paper was written by a boots on the ground commander and is a pretty good forecast on what was coming if/when we pulled out. This is all specific to Afghanistan, so if you’re looking for some blanket template to apply to all future nation building, it’s not helpful. I think that’s largely our problem. We try to apply a generic freedom/democracy templates to complicated ethnic and cultural issues and expect to money whip the outliers into place. In case you are a TLDR guy, the highlights I took from it were:

- A laughable 8 week training course to train illiterate poppy farmers to become the entire structure of their military, including NCOs. We purposely denied entry for the mujaheddin, which starved the new fighting force of what little functional fighters the country had, and handed them to the Taliban. 
- Trying to force diversity to unit structure in a ham fisted attempt to overcome centuries of ethnic and cultural issues. This further broke unit cohesion and also starved units of qualified bodies because guys from the north couldn’t even speak to guys in the south, too many of one tribe volunteered so they sat unused because unit x already had met that quota, etc. 
- Never addressing infrastructure beyond the big cities. Volunteers struggled to get to training centers. Trained soldiers struggled to get home on their vacations, so they just went home and never bothered to come back. Supplies and facilities in the remote areas (the places where the taliban was) were starved of resources, which led to further attrition. 
- Grossly overpaying volunteers in an effort to juice recruitment to achieve goals, despite the Afghan gov’t telling the US not to do it because they would never be able to maintain it. Coupled with the above it became a “go to a training center for 8 weeks and get a fat check” program that didn’t remotely impact retention. Guys got paid and went AWOL. 
- Providing resources that the illiterate army could never hope to maintain, which meant they had to rely on contractors to keep their army running. Of course, those contractors will GTFO the second the US pulls up their stakes, so this well trained, well equipped army was dead from the jump. 

[InkaUtexas 24,822]

8 minutes ago, Muy Frio said:

From what I’ve read a simple way to have made this all go smoother would’ve been to wait to pull out during the cooler months. Evidently half the year it’s too cold for massive mobilization of forces like the Taliban just did. Looks like we have a lot of posters who did tours over there that could fact check that. 

Yep, there is a fighting season. Winter everyone hunkers down. That is when I expect we will see retribution attacks. 

[MC Fresh Breath 4,074]

4 minutes ago, brakeman said:

 

[ChickenSandwich 9,750]

6 minutes ago, Muy Frio said:

Also looks like China jumping on this 

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1427267130467119104?s=21

 

their troll game is strong

China's state media mocked the US withdrawal in Afghanistan, saying the Taliban takeover was 'more smooth than the presidential transition in the US' (yahoo.com)

[B00M 6,000]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

 

 

 

Just heart wrenching for those little girls 

[DDD Dad 14,060]

13 minutes ago, Muy Frio said:

From what I’ve read a simple way to have made this all go smoother would’ve been to wait to pull out during the cooler months. Evidently half the year it’s too cold for massive mobilization of forces like the Taliban just did. Looks like we have a lot of posters who did tours over there that could fact check that. 

Not sure how that would have worked, what with the negotiated May deadline by TFG (no CR).

[BillyGoatHill 4,267]

13 minutes ago, Muy Frio said:

From what I’ve read a simple way to have made this all go smoother would’ve been to wait to pull out during the cooler months. Evidently half the year it’s too cold for massive mobilization of forces like the Taliban just did. Looks like we have a lot of posters who did tours over there that could fact check that. 

Yes. Definitely a fighting season from spring to fall ...

[elfenix 34,001]

One of the most interesting classes I took at UT was a government class called Causes of War. This is what I took from the class at a base level.
Dirty liberal propaganda, but still.

Sitting in a box in my office:

[Captainant 26,861]

Just now, BillyGoatHill said:

Yes. Definitely a fighting season from spring to fall ...

can't imagine why they thought it was good to negotiate a May withdrawal back in Feb of 2020 then

[The Ace of Aces 4,946]

IMO Trump's lone good thing was pledging to leave Afghanistan. But that treaty Pompeo and the Taliban worked out appears to have led to the Afghan military/govt being bribed out of power once the US leave was started. Hence the week it took them to capture Kabul.

This was going to happen regardless. 

 

Quote

The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban’s approaches.

“Some just wanted the money,” an Afghan special forces officer said of those who first agreed to meet with the Taliban. But others saw the U.S. commitment to a full withdrawal as an “assurance” that the militants would return to power in Afghanistan and wanted to secure their place on the winning side, he said. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he, like others in this report, was not authorized to disclose information to the press.

The Doha agreement, designed to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, instead left many Afghan forces demoralized, bringing into stark relief the corrupt impulses of many Afghan officials and their tenuous loyalty to the country’s central government. Some police officers complained that they had not been paid in six months or more.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

Edited August 16, 2021 by The Ace of Aces

[workswithseed 2,012]

10 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

 

Authoritarians are just a scourge in the world.

[52-80 18,963]

1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Yup. I was an econ major and still work somewhat in the field and study it often. I just can't get over the opportunity costs. What could we have done the last 20 years with all that money? We could have saved countless lives with simple disease and hunger initiatives without needing bombs or other war machines. Afghanistan has been a lost cause since the 70s, at least. There are horrible situations going on everywhere. Afghan people will suffer. So are Uighur Muslims in China, and countless people in Africa. We can't solve all problems worldwide. If we're gonna spend that kind of money for humanitarian efforts, lets focus on food, medicine, clothing, housing, education, etc., the things that can actually help third-world countries without war.

Edit to add that one thing we can do to help the Afghan situation, and others worldwide, is wide and robust refugee program for people to settle in the US. Make the burdens minimal. The only thing I care about is ensuring that we stop people from entering with bad intentions, and that number can be higher than zero if it helps the vast majority of people who need refuge.

We could put a bunch of people under the employment of the federal government and also pump money into kbr, blackwater, lockheed, etc

 

that good enough for us ?

[crash_davis 23,038]

Our idea of democracy, of equal opportunity for gender, of giving as much voice to the peasant as the elder is wholly against their culture and beliefs. The elders words' and decisions is the law. Women and especially young girls are merely property, maybe a class above livestock. What we tried to instill was going to take decades to just for the seed to be planted. Education is the ONLY way that country will evolve. We simply were not going to be there enough time to change minds or out last the older generation to die off.

I feel for the women and children. They children have no fucking say in any of it. Just the luck of where they are born.

This is just a shitty situation all around. Unless we were willing to be there for 100 years, this shit was never going to end any other way.

 

With that said, China and Russia may have more "success" because they will not to instill our ideas of equally and democracy. They are only to make money and make military and political allies. They are trying to make sure the Taliban don't harbor terrorists who may plot shit against their countries.

Edited August 16, 2021 by crash_davis

[MC Fresh Breath 4,074]

5 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Authoritarians are just a scourge in the world.

We tend to support them.

 

[hookemATL 11,496]

5 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

We could put a bunch of people under the employment of the federal government and also pump money into kbr, blackwater, lockheed, etc

 

that good enough for us ?

[David Dennison 17,660]

2 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

We tend to support them.

 

We will support literally anyone if it's in our national interest.

[Royalfan5 2,197]

20 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

Did you read the linked article?  It goes into a lot of details on what was wrong. This paper was written by a boots on the ground commander and is a pretty good forecast on what was coming if/when we pulled out. This is all specific to Afghanistan, so if you’re looking for some blanket template to apply to all future nation building, it’s not helpful. I think that’s largely our problem. We try to apply a generic freedom/democracy templates to complicated ethnic and cultural issues and expect to money whip the outliers into place. In case you are a TLDR guy, the highlights I took from it were:

- A laughable 8 week training course to train illiterate poppy farmers to become the entire structure of their military, including NCOs. We purposely denied entry for the mujaheddin, which starved the new fighting force of what little functional fighters the country had, and handed them to the Taliban. 
- Trying to force diversity to unit structure in a ham fisted attempt to overcome centuries of ethnic and cultural issues. This further broke unit cohesion and also starved units of qualified bodies because guys from the north couldn’t even speak to guys in the south, too many of one tribe volunteered so they sat unused because unit x already had met that quota, etc. 
- Never addressing infrastructure beyond the big cities. Volunteers struggled to get to training centers. Trained soldiers struggled to get home on their vacations, so they just went home and never bothered to come back. Supplies and facilities in the remote areas (the places where the taliban was) were starved of resources, which led to further attrition. 
- Grossly overpaying volunteers in an effort to juice recruitment to achieve goals, despite the Afghan gov’t telling the US not to do it because they would never be able to maintain it. Coupled with the above it became a “go to a training center for 8 weeks and get a fat check” program that didn’t remotely impact retention. Guys got paid and went AWOL. 
- Providing resources that the illiterate army could never hope to maintain, which meant they had to rely on contractors to keep their army running. Of course, those contractors will GTFO the second the US pulls up their stakes, so this well trained, well equipped army was dead from the jump. 

While there are a lot of failures here, is it even possible to build a cohesive armed force there? If you did the exact opposite of the above deals, I don't think you necessarily end of closer to a useful national army. 

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

10 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Russia may have more "success"

[Tuco 5,003]

33 minutes ago, Starfleet Command said:

It is so wild how disassociated actual policy is from what's discussed in the media from both GOP-leaning and Dem-leading media outlets. 

What likely happened here is that the Trump/Biden admins were finally able to secure an agreement with the Taliban that safeguarded the US' most important interests in the region (continued opium production and the construction of pipelines by Chevron/UNOCAL), making it unnecessary for the US to continue propping up a deeply corrupt, ineffectual, and unpopular government.  Why not take that deal if you're the US?  It would be dumb not to.  Because we can't discuss stuff like this in the major media, we have to instead portray this as another falling of Saigon moment which each side GOP/Dem will litigate for years.

From February:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/02/10/taliban-vows-to-guarantee-safety-of-trans-afghanistan-gas-pipeline/

The Taliban pledged support of it two years prior.  These assholes still need some level of support from the general population, and they don't get that stating they are going to oppose construction projects which will provide a long term revenue stream.  (Shit is still going to get blowed up by someone. )

 

Quote

“The Islamic Emirate views this project as an important element of the country’s economic infrastructure and believes its proper implementation will benefit the Afghan people. We announce our cooperation in providing security for the project in areas under our control,” the Taliban statement said.

 Feb2018

[workswithseed 2,012]

5 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

We tend to support them.

 

I mean they'll solve all our problems. How couldn't we force others to not feel the same?

 

[cactusflinthead 26,791]

 

[BillyGoatHill 4,267]

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

can't imagine why they thought it was good to negotiate a May withdrawal back in Feb of 2020 then

Months prior to May over there and still plenty of snow....while I agree that isn't/wasn't ideal, it was most likely better than how this has played out.

Couple of absolutes in war.....no plan survives first contact, and respect your enemy enough to be a credible threat to your existence.

 

Stating on July 8 ( in comparing Afghanistan to Saigon), that there is "There is going to be No circumstance of people being lifted off the roof of an Embassy of the United States in Afghanistan, ...it's not comparable...." hasn't aged very well and shows the lack of a true plan and the lack of respect to a foe of 20 years.

[XYZ 2,154]

3 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Really I hope moving forward this has finally taught this nation a lesson on nation building.

Nope, not a chance. Next time the US government comes out with the “we have to get them before they get us” message, fat stupid Americans will wave their little red, white, and blue flags in agreement. Same as with the boogie man in Iraq, same as with the boogie man in Vietnam. Fear is the main driver for human action. All you have to do is instill fear in people and then offer a “fix” and people will lap it up. It’s what we do.

[phdhorn 6,224]

51 minutes ago, BillyGoatHill said:

And of course, the fucktard media will give him a total pass. Fuck them too. 

So far, they've been rightly and acutely critical of the administration on this evacuation, spearing little pointed criticism.

Even if they revert to their typical dick sucking, Biden doesn't get out of this easily in the public and world status. This is a complete, utter, major catastrophic horrible screw-up on his part, one with terrible ramifications far outside of Afghanistan, and he's not going to wiggle out of this for at least the next year, unless by some miracle something happens to atone for it. Don't bet on it.

Especially as it seems to be increasingly coming out that he ignored his military advisors and intelligence and did this for no other reason than apparently hubris or some absolutely stupid pie in the sky desire to line up 9/11. I cannot even fathom that someone could actually have that mindset.

Edited August 16, 2021 by phdhorn

[Rip76 4,871]

One very weird thing I’ve noticed is that most ALL media sources are basically saying that Biden f’ed this up pretty badly.  Not something you see daily from all sources.

Just an observation.

[Brisketexan 103,148]

14 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

TLDR: without a homegrown military that wanted to resist, every bit of "nation building" was pointless.

[TXSG8R 3,325]

19 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

While there are a lot of failures here, is it even possible to build a cohesive armed force there? If you did the exact opposite of the above deals, I don't think you necessarily end of closer to a useful national army. 

That’s a great question, and I think it’s important to answer it related to time. In 20 years?  I don’t think there’s a chance in hell. Over a longer period with a better application of resources and strategy?  Still pretty hard. There are so many ethnicities and cultures playing tug of war, and the further you get away from the cities, the harder it is to enact any significant change. You are probably better off cutting the country up into smaller pieces and giving some of those people their own little fiefdoms and be done with it, or hand them over to the outside countries that use those regions to squeeze Afghanistan anyway.