Afghan "train, advise and assist" 1984 style

[untermensche]

If we just stay there another 20 years it will be different.

The Soviets were smarter.

They left after 10 years.

American credibility died when GW Bush changed the mission from destroying an al Qaeda training camp to regime change.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If we just stay there another 20 years it will be different.

The Soviets were smarter.

They left after 10 years.

American credibility died when GW Bush changed the mission from destroying an al Qaeda training camp to regime change.

Morally we were stuck being there for decades longer. I can’t imagine the utter fear women (and everyone else) is under. Afghanistan wasn’t a utopia, but it was better than what it was and what it will become.

So Trump made the deal with the Taliban to give them the country. Even having the future President released from prison.

 

[lpetrich]

Dan Rather on Twitter: "How much money did we spend in Afghanistan over the last 20 years that we were told we could never afford to spend at home?" / Twitter


(((Richard Arnold))) on Twitter: "@tomgara @lrozen Yes. When the contractors pulled out several weeks ago, the jig was up. The only way the Afghani army could supply bases or outposts was via the air and as soon as the maintenance stopped, the resupply stopped. No ammo, no food, no hope. That was it." / Twitter

amna on Twitter: "1am in Kabul. I'm messaging with sources on the ground there. They couldnt get to the airport. They're holed up in what they hope are safe spaces. The city is under curfew. They say it's calm except for some gunfire. Some have been targeted by the Talibs before. Now they wait." / Twitter

آرش on Twitter: "10 months ago Pompeo met with the Taliban official that’s going through be the new leader of Afghanistan. (link)" / Twitter
Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Ana Navarro-Cárdenas on Twitter: "
20 years
$2 Trillion
US service members killed in Afghanistan thru April: 2,448
US contractors: 3,846
Allied service members from NATO members: 1,144
Aid workers: 444
Journalists: 72
In midst of this debacle, let’s remember the service, sacrifice and loss of those families." / Twitter
then
jordan on Twitter: "Over 100,000 Afghans were killed and millions more driven out of their homes but they are rarely included in these self-pitying roundups." / Twitter


Corey Richardson on Twitter: "Unpopular opinion: if we’d left Afghanistan in 2010, 2015, 2017, or 2020, it would’ve always ended like this. The Afghan army knew this was coming for almost a year and still melted like butter when confronted by the Taliban." / Twitter
then
Lindsay Beyerstein on Twitter: "I’m trying to think of ..." / Twitter

I’m trying to think of a single media account about a single unit of the Afghan Army or police that came away with the conclusion that THAT unit was a finely oiled fighting machine ready to take on the Taliban at any moment.

If they couldn’t even produce showpiece units to parade around as combat-ready success stories, what did that say about the viability of the rest of the Afghan military and police?

The viability of the Afghan military was THE story the US government wanted told and it never seemed to get told anywhere, not even on the smallest scale, not even by the most sympathetic reporters.

So, yeah: You didn’t need sophisticated intelligence or obscure information to infer that the Afghan military would dissolve when the US stopped supporting it. Even the US government never tried to pretend otherwise, they just sold us on the idea this might magically change.

And if there had been a magic change at any point in the last 20 years, they would have told us about it.

The most positive story about a specific unit that I can remember was one that said that some Afghan police were doing better at directing traffic, most days.

I don't recall much about the Vietnam War, but I vaguely recall that South Vietnam was something like that.

 

[lpetrich]

Secular Talk🎙 on Twitter: "Spent billions training and arming a fake military to defend a made up country and they all ran to Tajikistan the second they heard a Taliban fighter fart" / Twitter


Biden team surprised by rapid Taliban gains in Afghanistan

Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban while arguing that Americans of all political persuasions have tired of a 20-year war, a conflict that demonstrated the limits of money and military might to force a Western-style democracy on a society not ready or willing to embrace it.

By Sunday, though, leading figures in the administration acknowledged they were caught off guard with the utter speed of the collapse of Afghan security forces. The challenge of that effort became clear after reports of sporadic gunfire at the Kabul airport prompted Americans to shelter as they awaited flights to safety.

Alex Thompson on Twitter: "“In the upper ranks of Biden’s staff, the rapid collapse in Afghanistan only confirmed the decision to leave: If the meltdown of the Afghan forces would come so quickly after nearly 2 decades…another 6 months or a year…would not have changed anything” (link)" / Twitter
then
Secular Talk🎙 on Twitter: "Based" / Twitter

Back to the article.

Most Republicans have not pushed Biden to keep troops in Afghanistan over the long term and they also supported Trump’s own push to exit the country. Still, some in the GOP are stepping up their critique of Biden’s withdrawal strategy and said images from Sunday of American helicopters circling the U.S. Embassy in Kabul evoked the humiliating departure of U.S. personnel from Vietnam.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell deemed the scenes of withdrawal as “the embarrassment of a superpower laid low.”

 

[lpetrich]

Peter Turchin on Twitter: "State Collapse and Nation Building in Afghanistan (link)" / Twitter
noting
Peter Turchin State Collapse and Nation Building in Afghanistan - Peter Turchin

Today the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed. Top officials, from president Ashraf Ghani down, have run away. The army partly melted away, partly defected to Taliban. There are reports of looting in Kabul, as cops have deserted their posts. This is a classical state collapse, although it is clear that the void will be filled soon enough by the Taliban, who, according to reports, plan to announce their own state from the presidential palace in Kabul in days.

There are many ironies in this situation, but personally for me the main one is that Ashraf Ghani started as an academic who studied state collapse and nation building. Back in 2008 I reviewed, for Nature, the book written by Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States. My review was not gentle.

His review: 19.6 books MH AB - FailStates_review.pdf - at the time, AG was a former finance minister of Afghanistan.

They had four examples, Europe after WWII, Singapore, the southern US, and Ireland, and PT says that only Singapore might reasonably be called a case of state collapse.

Europe in 1945 was devastated by interstate war; Ireland was poor before its economic miracle but not a collapsed state; and few would consider the United States to be weak. Seceding from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965, Singapore was plagued by poverty, corruption and a communist insurrection. Today, it is an economic powerhouse with one of the least corrupt civil services in the world.

PT then criticizes the authors for being ignorant of a lot of relevant work, and also for not offering very specific policy proposals.

 

[untermensche]

If we just stay there another 20 years it will be different.

The Soviets were smarter.

They left after 10 years.

American credibility died when GW Bush changed the mission from destroying an al Qaeda training camp to regime change.

Morally we were stuck being there for decades longer. I can’t imagine the utter fear women (and everyone else) is under. Afghanistan wasn’t a utopia, but it was better than what it was and what it will become.

So Trump made the deal with the Taliban to give them the country. Even having the future President released from prison.

Morally?

Even when it is likely to be no different than today?

We have no moral obligation to continue a futile effort.

We had 20 years. We don't deserve more if it has done nothing.

 

[J842P]

If we just stay there another 20 years it will be different.

The Soviets were smarter.

They left after 10 years.

American credibility died when GW Bush changed the mission from destroying an al Qaeda training camp to regime change.

Morally we were stuck being there for decades longer. I can’t imagine the utter fear women (and everyone else) is under. Afghanistan wasn’t a utopia, but it was better than what it was and what it will become.

So Trump made the deal with the Taliban to give them the country. Even having the future President released from prison.

Morally? Are you kidding?

 

[lpetrich]

Peter Turchin has some ideas about nation building.

My review concluded that Fixing Failed States failed as an academic book. Now Ghani failed as the head of the state, together with the state he was the head of.

To be fair, Ghani took on a very difficult, indeed impossible task. Everything that I know of nation building suggests this.

He then says

... history suggests that external pressure applied to a society may increase internal cohesion and cooperation. National humiliation of China, first from the European great powers in the nineteenth century and then from Japanese occupation during the Second World War, played an important part in its post-war reunification, for example.

The policy implications of historical outcomes are doubtful. We can hardly subject societies to horrific stresses deliberately.

He then notes that Afghanistan has indeed been under pressure from outside: the US's efforts to pacify that nation.

Another potential problem that needs to be resolved is elite overproduction. Taliban is taking care of that, also. A few of the supporters of the old regime have been executed, according to reports. The main ones ran away. The rest will be demoted and replaced by the Taliban cadres.

He then states that the US has indeed been doing nation building in Afghanistan for the last 20 years, even if not in its intended way: nation building by provoking its opponents to become organized.


Secular Talk🎙 on Twitter: "Free college would cost ~$60 billion. The 300,000 Afghan soldiers who surrendered to the Taliban in a week cost $90 billion" / Twitter

 

[ZiprHead]

What an idiot.

This is the US embassy in Kabul. Obviously not the same building. But you do you.

 

[lpetrich]

Hugo Lowell on Twitter: "New: Republican Party has removed a page from their website bragging about Trump’s deal with the Taliban that committed Biden to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan — and led to the fall of Kabul today." / Twitter
Hugo Lowell on Twitter: "“President Trump has continued to take the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan” — h/t @daveweigel who appears to have spotted first (link)" / Twitter
noting
President Trump Is Bringing Peace To The Middle East - Wayback Machine

I like this reaction: Secular Talk🎙 on Twitter: "lol" / Twitter

Krystal Ball on Twitter: "Seeing a few democrats suddenly remember that George W Bush is a lying war criminal and not just Michelle Obama and Ellen Degeneres' friend." / Twitter


Some Afghans have fled to Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic and fellow "stan" that is north and northeast of Afghanistan, with a shared border.

 

[barbos]

So far girls schools are operating. Maybe Taliban will let them be this time?

 

[TV and credit cards]

So did Biden have all the necessary and accurate intel to know how quickly the Afghan government would collapse? Likely so. The lack of pay, food, and ammo for Afghan troops had to have been expected. But that we would have to send US troops back in does indicate we did not expect Afghan forces to offer zero resistance.
Well, how do you leave a country when you expect this is going to happen in weeks? Quickly. But when it happens in days? It gets messy.

Thinking of which Afghans to evacuate. Who’s lives might be in danger if they are left behind, who are these people? What qualifies? Whoever you evacuate, whether it’s to the US or a neutral country/territory, you own. Whether they deserved to be evacuated or not, you send them back, their lives are likely in danger just for attempting to leave. So, does a custodial worker who cleaned the mess hall for five months in 2003 deserve to be evacuated? Where’s the line? Should all of this have been considered years ago? Should/could the Biden administration have done so in the months leading up to this? If immigration laws and or Congress permits.
All I’m getting so far are a lot of shortsighted comments from the usual cast of talking heads on the tube and finger pointing from biased periodicals.

 

[barbos]

https://twitter.com/AsvakaNews?ref_...azeta.ru/politics/2021/08/16_a_13883258.shtml

People falling from the plane on the video.

 

[funinspace]

So did Biden have all the necessary and accurate intel to know how quickly the Afghan government would collapse? Likely so. The lack of pay, food, and ammo for Afghan troops had to have been expected. But that we would have to send US troops back in does indicate we did not expect Afghan forces to offer zero resistance.
Well, how do you leave a country when you expect this is going to happen in weeks? Quickly. But when it happens in days? It gets messy.

I have a hard time believing that Biden's team knew it was going to fall apart this fast, or even anything close to this fast. If he did, he would be a fool and idiot to not start reducing the Embassy staff to a bare minimum before the soldier count dropped too low. And none, zero, nada of the talking heads and experts were talking of such an outcome just 3 months ago...but now all of a sudden fucking Biden was supposed to know. The Generals were saying this was a stalemate just the other year...

A few points on the professional thinking...

From last year, the 'experts' were still calling this fiasco a 'stalemate',

https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan

For more than four years the war has been at a stalemate, with, according to official U.S. government estimates as of 2019, only 53.8 percent of Afghan districts under government control or influence, 33.9 percent contested, and the remaining 12.3 percent under the control or influence of the Taliban. The ANDSF continue to suffer heavy casualties

As the US looks for face saving ways to bug out...while another Presidential race keeps the never ending war under the Mute Button.

Also, last year from a neocon, splaining how the Afghan government might only last 2-3 years if we pull out:

The Neocons want it both ways in the preparation for the post occupation blame game. A pathetic article of splaining...

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/afghanistan-the-long-painful-retreat/

Despite the rhetoric of a mission accomplished, however, Biden’s address was notable for what was not said. The U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has dwindled to a few thousand U.S. troops working mostly in the background to advise and assist Afghan soldiers willing to fight and risk death for their country, while suffering four troops killed in action in 2020, the lowest number of U.S. combat deaths in the country in a calendar year since the war began. Far more troops were killed in training accidents during that time.

Earlier in the article it mentions the 15,000 contractors that will also be leaving. The author also leaves out that this impressive low soldier count and 'background' effort, has come with significant losses of governmental control of areas of the country, so no it isn't working. I guess thousands of bombing runs is now 'background' work... In the last few years we substituted bombs for boots on the ground.

In a recent classified intelligence assessment, the U.S. Intelligence Community reportedly told the Biden administration that if U.S. troops leave before a power-sharing agreement is reached between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the Islamist extremist group could once again impose their iron grip and totalitarian ideology on the Afghan people within two or three years.

Thinking of which Afghans to evacuate. Who’s lives might be in danger if they are left behind, who are these people? What qualifies? Whoever you evacuate, whether it’s to the US or a neutral country/territory, you own. Whether they deserved to be evacuated or not, you send them back, their lives are likely in danger just for attempting to leave. So, does a custodial worker who cleaned the mess hall for five months in 2003 deserve to be evacuated? Where’s the line? Should all of this have been considered years ago? Should/could the Biden administration have done so in the months leading up to this? If immigration laws and or Congress permits.

Yep, it sucks for all those people. Also the Biden team has to deal with a big part of our country that really won't like the idea of thousands upon thousands of Muslim Afghans being resettled in the US. That is just US political reality.

 

[Jayjay]

https://twitter.com/AsvakaNews?ref_...azeta.ru/politics/2021/08/16_a_13883258.shtml

People falling from the plane on the video.

Darwin award winners. Hollywood thanks them, because this scene is very likely to be in any movie they make about the withdrawal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think the US mindset was, the Afghan military would be capable of a stalemate. Again, mistaking Afghanistan for Iraq.

What didn't enter the calculus was that the Afghan military likely felt the Taliban would win... eventually. So why risk the violence and threats to their families (based on the terror strikes for the last 15 to 20 years) when they can just lay down their arms as well as beheadings of the military leaders. This was Shock and Awe... where the shock was all the bombings and attacks the past couple of decades.

There is plenty of blame on this. Biden's blame would seemingly being completely unprepared for this breaking down so fast and not staging evacuation appropriately. Though, I honestly don't recall anyone warning it would be a week or two. The remainder of the blame is on W and the Neocons who made a very hard objective impossible and Trump, who apparently provided the Taliban the tools to do this.

In a perfect world, this pretty much ends Pompeo's presidential run.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

https://twitter.com/AsvakaNews?ref_...azeta.ru/politics/2021/08/16_a_13883258.shtml

People falling from the plane on the video.

Darwin award winners. Hollywood thanks them, because this scene is very likely to be in any movie they make about the withdrawal.

That isn't a fair Darwin. Assuming the video is legitimate, this is the Internet after all, that would be primal fear and panic leading to unspeakable desperation where the risk of death isn't even a risk.

 

[Politesse]

So far girls schools are operating. Maybe Taliban will let them be this time?

That seems incredibly unlikely.

 

[Politesse]

I think the US mindset was, the Afghan military would be capable of a stalemate. Again, mistaking Afghanistan for Iraq.

What didn't enter the calculus was that the Afghan military likely felt the Taliban would win... eventually. So why risk the violence and threats to their families (based on the terror strikes for the last 15 to 20 years) when they can just lay down their arms as well as beheadings of the military leaders. This was Shock and Awe... where the shock was all the bombings and attacks the past couple of decades.

There is plenty of blame on this. Biden's blame would seemingly being completely unprepared for this breaking down so fast and not staging evacuation appropriately. Though, I honestly don't recall anyone warning it would be a week or two. The remainder of the blame is on W and the Neocons who made a very hard objective impossible and Trump, who apparently provided the Taliban the tools to do this.

In a perfect world, this pretty much ends Pompeo's presidential run.

Like sudden turns in the economy, public memory always associates the beginning and end of wars with whoever is in office when it happens, regardless of the situation that led to those epochal moments.

 

[barbos]

So far girls schools are operating. Maybe Taliban will let them be this time?

That seems incredibly unlikely.

We'll see. Maybe these idiots learned that pissing off outside world could lead to 20 year old occupation.