Afghan "train, advise and assist" 1984 style

[TomC]

The Taliban was result of the USA. They used to be called the mujahadeen, which the Reagan/BUSH administration supported with money and weapons when they were helping fight the Cold War.

Kinda like ISIS. They're another group of violent Islamists that the USA supported when it was convenient.
Tom

Is that right? My understanding is that they started as a sort of vigilante group against corrupt warlords. The Afgans wanted order more than anything else.

You probably do believe that. It's still not true.

The USA helped kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan by delivering money and weapons to people like Osama bin Laden. Once we'd accomplished our goal, we didn't care what people like bin Laden did.

They were less corrupt than our old allies the warlords. But, obviously, not a big improvement.
Tom

 

[Trausti]

Come on, you need to see a doctor.
Russia has nothing to gain with Taliban in power.

Maybe not Russians as a whole.

But Putin sure does.
Like he did in Syria, he's demonstrating to the global community that the USA is falling off the "World's Sole Remaining Superpower" hill. The Taliban just kicked American butt.
Majorly.

Assad teamed up with Iran and Russia. He's still in power.

Face it. Putin wants to boot America off the top of the hill and Trump helped him do that, immensely. It wasn't hard for Putin to figure that an incompetent divisive president would help Russia regain superpower status, and so he helped get Trump into the White House. And it worked.

Probably, C19 was just an added bonus to Putin.

Tom

Well, Tom, making Biden president must be Putin’s masterstroke.

https://youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4016&v=9bpS8Zcic-U&feature=emb_title

 

[funinspace]

The Taliban was result of the USA. They used to be called the mujahadeen, which the Reagan/BUSH administration supported with money and weapons when they were helping fight the Cold War.

Kinda like ISIS. They're another group of violent Islamists that the USA supported when it was convenient.
Tom

Is that right? My understanding is that they started as a sort of vigilante group against corrupt warlords. The Afgans wanted order more than anything else.

I'd say that it's complicated. It certainly isn't a direct line from mujadadeen to Taliban...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen

Many Muslims from other countries assisted the various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. Some groups of these veterans became significant players in later conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments.[17] These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.
<snip>
In 1992 the DRA's last president, Mohammad Najibullah, was overthrown and most mujahideen factions signed the Peshawar Accords. However, the mujahideen could not establish a functional united government, and many of the larger mujahideen groups began to fight each other over power in Kabul.

After several years of devastating fighting, in a small Pashtun village, a mullah named Mohammed Omar organized a new armed movement with the backing of Pakistan. This movement became known as the Taliban ("students" in Pashto), referring to how most Taliban had grown up in refugee camps in Pakistan during the 1980s and were taught in the Saudi-backed Wahhabi madrassas, religious schools known for teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

So Omar started with the Mujahideen, but later laid the foundations of the Taliban.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar

Omar fought as a rebel soldier with the anti-Soviet Mujahideen under the command of Nek Mohammed of the Hizb-e-Islami Khalis; he reportedly also fought for another Mujahideen faction, the Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami – but he did not fight against Mohammad Najibullah's regime between 1989 and 1992.[34] It was reported that he was "a crack marksman who had destroyed many Soviet tanks during the Afghan War".[47]

Omar was wounded four times. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef claims to have been present when exploding shrapnel destroyed one of Omar's eyes during a battle in Sangsar, Panjwaye District shortly before the 1987 Battle of Arghandab.[9] Other sources place this event in 1986[54] or in the 1989 Battle of Jalalabad.[10]

Unlike many Afghan mujaheddin, Omar spoke Arabic

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11451718

The Taliban, or "students" in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that the predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.

The promise made by the Taliban - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

link

At a wide-ranging news conference in Kabul on Tuesday, the Taliban offered conciliatory messages, promising not to discriminate against women or seek to control the media and suggesting that those who worked with the previous government and allied forces would be pardoned.

“We assure the international community that there will be no discrimination against women, but, of course, within the frameworks we have,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said.

Mujahid said women will be allowed to work within the confines of sharia law, but he emphasized that how that will work in practice will need to be determined.

I can't wait to read that the Taliban notes that women were happy to choose to return to a more "traditional role".

 

[TomC]

Well, Tom, making Biden president must be Putin’s masterstroke.

No, that was Trump.

Rather like Obama being left with the wreckage of the Bush Economy, Biden is left with the wreckage of Trump's policies.

Blaming Biden for failing to wave a magic wand and repair the damage done by his predecessors is irrational, but expected.


Too bad we can't ask Iran to help stabilize Afghanistan. They're staunch Islamists and have a powerful military force on the Afghanistan border. They'd have way more clout than we do. If Obama had gotten his way, we'd be nearly a decade into a peaceful and cooperative relationship with Iran. Unfortunately, Trump and the TeaParty aren't interested in peace and prosperity, so here we are.

Getting our asses kicked by some diaperheads in Afghanistan after 20 years!
Tom

 

[atrib]

This is a complete failure of the Biden administration. There is no way to sugarcoat it. At least he could have ordered massive bombing of Taliban positions over the past weeks to weaken the Taliban as much as possible. Why did he not do that?

Probably because it wouldn't have helped. We bombed the crap out of our enemies in Viet Nam and it did not change the end result one iota. And some people might argue that killing hundreds or thousands of people in an effort to "weaken them", without any concrete military objective in mind that serves the interests of the people of Afghanistan or the US, would constitute a war crime. As heartbreaking as it is to watch all our work over the last two decades come to nothing, it is still preferable to a drawn out civil war that kills many thousands more and uproots the lives of millions and has no net effect on the situation in Afghanistan.

Another reason for us to stay in Afghanistan would be the rare earth metals, lithium etc. I suspect that now China will swoop in and make mining deals with Taliban.

The Afghans should be free to utilize their resources as they see fit, and we have the option to compete with other countries on the free market for these resources. To suggest that we continue to occupy another country so can exploit their resources is absurd, and flies in the face of our nation's policies over the past hundred years or more.

And how he is going to make another mistake and bring in tens of thousands of Afghan mass migrants without any vetting for Islamist positions. 99% of Afghans are Sharia supporters and it is insane bringing them in blindly. Places such as Clarkston, GA already looks like an Islamic country with women in burqas/niqabs and men with long beards in nightgowns. We do not need more of that!

I am ok with women choosing to wear whatever attire they find suitable, and men choosing to wear long beards and dress in their traditional clothing. I am ok with the US providing special visas to Afghani people who have worked with us and supported our efforts in their country for two decades, often putting their own lives in danger to do so. I am completely ok with people choosing to worship whatever god(s) they want to worship, and will fight for their right to do so. I would prefer that the US not allow racists to immigrate to the US, along with people who habitually break the laws of our land and flout their illegal activities on the internet, but they manage to sneak in once in a while. Such is life.

 

[Trausti]

Well, Tom, making Biden president must be Putin’s masterstroke.

No, that was Trump.

Rather like Obama being left with the wreckage of the Bush Economy, Biden is left with the wreckage of Trump's policies.

Blaming Biden for failing to wave a magic wand and repair the damage done by his predecessors is irrational, but expected.


Too bad we can't ask Iran to help stabilize Afghanistan. They're staunch Islamists and have a powerful military force on the Afghanistan border. They'd have way more clout than we do. If Obama had gotten his way, we'd be nearly a decade into a peaceful and cooperative relationship with Iran. Unfortunately, Trump and the TeaParty aren't interested in peace and prosperity, so here we are.

Getting our asses kicked by some diaperheads in Afghanistan after 20 years!
Tom

Ah, Tom, most agree this Afghanistan misadventure must end. But we’d like it done competently. Putin chose Biden to be president to ensure that didn’t happen.

 

[lpetrich]

In Pictures: Evacuation flights resume at Kabul airport | Asia News | Al Jazeera
With a picture of some 640 Afghans crowded inside a USAF C-17 military transport airplane.

"By the afternoon, at least 12 military flights had taken off, a diplomat at the airport said."

US social media firms face new challenge in Afghanistan | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera - "Social media firms are split on how to treat content posted by the Taliban as only some of them consider it a rebel group."

With economic assets to secure, China embraces the Taliban | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera - "Afghanistan’s stability is key to protect a copper mine, oil blocks, $50bn of Belt-and-Road projects in the neighbourhood."

The collapse of Afghan military: We’ve seen this movie before | Asia | Al Jazeera - "The same factors that led the Afghan military to surrender to the Taliban this weekend were behind the collapse of the Iraqi military back in 2014."

Indeed, despite the many fundamental differences between the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, military failures of both states were caused by the same three factors:

First, the United States sought to impose the rigid, hierarchical American military doctrine on both armies, without considering the differences in the Afghan and Iraqi cultural contexts.

Second, these enfeebled armies had to face off against either ISIL or the Taliban – violent non-state actors which possess a stronger “asabiyya” (group solidarity) than them.

Third, there were weak leaders both in Kabul and Baghdad – former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and recently departed President Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan – resulting in ineffective administrations and faltering governance. Alongside the US, these leaders allowed networks of patronage and corruption to take root in their countries’ militaries during their respective rebuilding processes, enabling the eventual success of ISIL and the Taliban.

Though Iraq and Afghanistan are different in a lot of ways,

... both debacles were the result of an American invasion and consequent failed state-building efforts.

Indeed, the US’s 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq both led to externally-imposed, securitised state-building processes that had devastating consequences for these countries and their security sectors.

After its invasions, the US excluded the Iraqis in the Baath party and military and Afghans in the Taliban from its state-building efforts. In response, both these groups turned to violence to undermine the new state and the military.

...
The problem is that in both cases the US efforts resulted in armies created in the image of the US military, with a rigid, centralised hierarchy. Washington hoped that these copy-cat armies would eventually develop the necessary capabilities to conduct large-scale ground operations with air support from the US. Neither army achieved this goal, which soon proved redundant anyway as both Afghanistan and Iraq became theatres of asymmetric warfare and armed groups’ attacks.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US provided sophisticated weaponry to the new military forces, such as aircraft, but it soon became clear that local forces cannot maintain these complex equipment without a constant deployment of US military advisers on site. Other US weapons, including jeeps, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and tanks, ironically ended up in the hands of ISIL or the Taliban, resulting in the US taxpayer indirectly subsidising these groups

Lots of corruption, like in South Vietnam.

Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, widespread desertion and corruption prevented US-trained militaries from emerging as capable forces.

High-ranking officers in both militaries, for example, are known to have inflated their rosters with fictitious names and collected paycheques for these “ghost soldiers”. This practice emerged in both states, because the military served as a patronage network for the countries’ leaders and officer posts were awarded to political loyalists rather than those with military acumen. These politically connected officers used their positions to extract wealth for themselves, not only by inflating the rosters but also by taking a cut from the “transit fees” the soldiers under their command routinely collect from the public at checkpoints.

This corruption made a lot of enemies.

 

[Gospel]

My Crystal ball is showing a Fox News talking head with Pakistan on the banner.

 

[lpetrich]

Afghanistan under the Taliban: What do we know so far? | Taliban News | Al Jazeera - "New government formation talks and evacuations are under way simultaneously as the Taliban seeks to reassure nervous people."

The Associated Press news agency has cited an anonymous official as saying that senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi is in the Afghan capital negotiating government formation with Kabul’s political leadership, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council.

The official says the talks are aimed at bringing other non-Taliban leaders into a government that Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has said will be an “inclusive Afghan government”.

Why did the Afghan army disintegrate so quickly? | Taliban | Al Jazeera - "The billions spent by the US and NATO on the Afghan military could not fix major internal flaws."

First, there was widespread corruption in Afghanistan’s defence and interior ministries where funds, ammunition and food deliveries were stolen before reaching the soldiers on the ground. The ammunition and other equipment were sold on the black market, eventually ending up in the Taliban’s hands.

...
Second, the embezzlement and corruption undermined morale within the ranks of the army. The integrity of senior leadership is pivotal in military affairs to win the troops’ respect and loyalty. For unpaid soldiers, the lavish lifestyles of their commanders were often too much to swallow. Hence, instead of fighting and dying, they preferred to save their lives by surrendering to the Taliban under its amnesty offers.

Third, there was also no ideological cohesion within the army or a sense of national duty and belonging. In fact, there was significant mistrust towards the country’s political leadership. No Afghan soldier was ready to fight and die to defend President Ashraf Ghani or the government. Conspiracy theories about a secret deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban were rife among Afghan troops. This environment of doubt and suspicion further undermined Afghan soldiers’ resolve to resist the advance of the ideologically cohesive Taliban, whose fighters were driven by a desire to establish an Islamic emirate and drive out foreign troops they saw as occupiers.

Fourth, continuous political interference and reshuffling of office holders as high as interior and defence ministers, governors and police chiefs also affected the ANDSF’s battlefield performance. ...

Fifth, the Taliban’s smart military strategy of taking control of major border crossings, main highways and besieging the big cities crippled Kabul’s ability to send reinforcements and supplies. Many army units were cut off from the rest of the country and thus were forced to either flee across the border neighbouring countries or to dissolve.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ah, Tom, most agree this Afghanistan misadventure must end. But we’d like it done competently. Putin chose Biden to be president to ensure that didn’t happen.

I understand many anti-psychotic therapies are quite effective nowadays.

 

[J842P]

The Taliban was result of the USA. They used to be called the mujahadeen, which the Reagan/BUSH administration supported with money and weapons when they were helping fight the Cold War.

Kinda like ISIS. They're another group of violent Islamists that the USA supported when it was convenient.
Tom

Is that right? My understanding is that they started as a sort of vigilante group against corrupt warlords. The Afgans wanted order more than anything else.

You probably do believe that. It's still not true.

The USA helped kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan by delivering money and weapons to people like Osama bin Laden. Once we'd accomplished our goal, we didn't care what people like bin Laden did.

They were less corrupt than our old allies the warlords. But, obviously, not a big improvement.
Tom

Sort of, but some important points: the US funded and equipped the mujahideen directly, the Taliban are not the mujahideen, or at least, not synonymous with the mujahideen and indeed fought with the mujahideen groups we funded.

Taliban just means "the students". The Taliban was formed out of the refugee children that escaped during the Soviet Afghan war into Pakistan. Fundamentalist, Deobandi (pretty much Indian-style Wahhabi) madrassas in Pakistan took in those refugees for free and educated them in their revivalist style of Islam. The Pakistani ISI worked very closely here, and the USA / CIA was definitely supporting the ISI at the time. All around, a complicated mess.

 

[lpetrich]

WATCH: Taliban Capture Opulent Palace of US-Allied Warlord Gen. Dostum

Taliban fighters have entered the palace of a prominent Afghan warlord and US ally as they captured the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan.

Videos circulating on social media online show the fighters entering the ostentatious property of General Abdul Rashid Dostum.

The insurgents can be seen sitting on the opulent furniture and pretending to drink from a gold tea set.

That was the house of warlord  Abdul Rashid Dostum

Abdul Rashid Dostum (/ˈɑːbdəl rəˈʃiːd doʊsˈtuːm/ (About this soundlisten) AHB-dəl rə-SHEED dohs-TOOM; Dari: عبدالرشید دوستم‎, Uzbek Latin: Abdul Rashid Do‘stum, Uzbek Cyrillic: Абдул Рашид Дўстум; born 25 March 1954) is an Afghan politician, Marshal in the Afghan National Army, and founder and leader of the political party Junbish-e Milli. Dostum was a major army commander in the communist government during the Soviet-Afghan War, and in 2001 was the key indigenous ally to US Special Forces and the CIA during the campaign to topple the Taliban government. He is regarded to be both one of the most powerful and most notorious warlords since the beginning of the Afghan wars,[2] known for siding with winners during different wars.[3]

...
Dostum is a controversial figure in Afghanistan.[11][12] He is seen as a capable and fierce military leader[13] and remains wildly popular among the Uzbek community in the country;[14] Many of his supporters call him "Pasha" (پاشا), an honorable Uzbek/Turkic term.[6] However he has also been widely accused of committing atrocities and war crimes, most notoriously the suffocation of up to 1,000 Taliban fighters in the Dasht-i-Leili massacre and he remains widely feared among the populace.[15][16][17] In 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was reported to be considering launching an inquiry into whether Dostum had engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan.[18]

 Dasht-i-Leili massacre - "The Dasht-i-Leili massacre occurred in December 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan when 250 to 2,000 Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal shipping containers while being transferred by Junbish-i Milli soldiers under the supervision of forces loyal to General Rashid Dostum[1][2][3] from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan."

Back to Commander Dostum.

Dostum is considered to be liberal and somewhat leftist. Being ethnic Uzbek, he has worked on the battlefield with leaders from all other major ethnic groups, Hazaras, Tajiks and Pashtuns.[51] When Dostum was ruling his northern Afghanistan proto-state before the Taliban took over in 1998, women were able to go about unveiled, girls were allowed to go to school and study at the University of Balkh, cinemas showed Indian films, music played on television, and Russian vodka and German beer were openly available: activities which were all banned by the Taliban.[52]

We will not submit to a government where there is no whisky and no music.
— Dostum to his aides during the rise of the Taliban in c. 1995[6][53]

He viewed the ISAF forces attempt to crush the Taliban as ineffective and has gone on record saying in 2007 that he could mop up the Taliban "in six months"[8] if allowed to raise a 10,000 strong army of Afghan veterans.[8] As of 2007, senior Afghan government officials did not trust Dostum as they were concerned that he might be secretly rearming his forces.[8]

He was a member of the  Northern Alliance in the late 1990's. After the Taliban's recent triumph, some of the NA has re-emerged as the  Panjshir resistance named after the  Panjshir Valley a little north of Kabul, the last place in Afghanistan that the Taliban does not now control.

 

[J842P]

Ah, Tom, most agree this Afghanistan misadventure must end. But we’d like it done competently.

Leaving Afghanistan was always going to end up this way, that is, the Taliban was always going to regain control. Anyone who has payed any attention the last 20 years knew there was no chance that wouldn't happen. Most of those, to be fair, thought it would take three months not a couple weeks, but anything but a continued occupations would only be delaying the inevitable. I'm not exactly sure what those people you are referring to were expecting.


Anyway, Biden may have actually secured my vote for 2024.

 

[J842P]

Basically, the chaos we are seeing now is a result of America now wanting to "surrender", at least not explicitly. A good article by Ryan Grim at the Intercept:

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-surrender-withdrawal-biden/

AT THE HEART of the criticism of the way the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has unfolded is a contradiction that nobody in the American media or in public policy wants to grapple with.

As President Joe Biden acknowledged Monday afternoon, the images coming out of Kabul are indeed gut-wrenching, and they are also what Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s secretary of defense, once called, in a different context, “untidy.” But the only way for there to have been an orderly transfer of power in the wake of the U.S. departure was for the process to have been negotiated as a transfer of power. And to negotiate a transfer of power requires acknowledging — and here’s the hard part for the U.S. — that power is transferring.

Therein lies the contradiction: An orderly exit required admitting defeat and negotiating the unutterable: surrender to the Taliban.

 

[J842P]

Anyone who is trying to score partisan points during this is only signaling that their opinions shouldn't be taken seriously on the matter.

Afghanistan was a two-decade long abject failure. Indeed, Trump's decision to pull out and Biden's moving forward with it was the best strategic decision in the last two decades. So thank you, Trump and Biden.

 

[J842P]

This is a complete failure of the Biden administration. There is no way to sugarcoat it. At least he could have ordered massive bombing of Taliban positions over the past weeks to weaken the Taliban as much as possible.

LOL. Gee! Bombing the Taliban. Why did no one ever think of that over the last 20 years. You are a military genius, Derec.

 

[lpetrich]

Taliban says will respect women’s rights, press freedom | Taliban News | Al Jazeera - "The group says it will allow Afghan women to work and study, assures media workers they will be protected."

Infographic: Tracking the flights out of Kabul | Infographic News | Al Jazeera - "Air travel in Afghanistan is now limited to military aircraft evacuating foreigners and some Afghan nationals."

According to OSINT sources at least 170 military flights flew from countries including: the US (128), GB(12), France (6), Canada (5), Germany (4), Italy (3), Australia (3), India (2), Austria (1), Belgium (1), Denmark (1), Holland (1), Sweden (1), Spain (1) and Turkey (1) were tracked flying into and out of Kabul Airport between August 15 and 16.

Commercially, according to flightradar24, a flight-tracking website, only six international flights carrying hundreds of foreign nationals have flown out of Kabul since August 15, including 2 belonging to India, 2 from Turkey, 1 from Pakistan and 1 from the UAE.

Women in Afghanistan Fear Return to a Repressive Past Under Taliban - The New York Times - "In the years since the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban, women and girls have done things that would have been unimaginable under their rule. But will those gains hold?"

But many are deeply fearful, among them the millions of Afghan women who are afraid of a return to a repressive past, when the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001, and barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. In 1996, a woman in Kabul had the end of her thumb cut off for wearing nail varnish, according to Amnesty International. In recent months, some women have been flogged by Taliban fighters for having their faces uncovered.

In the two decades after the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban, the United States invested more than $780 million to encourage women’s rights. Girls and women have joined the military and police forces, held political office, competed in the Olympics and scaled the heights of engineering on robotics teams — things that once seemed unimaginable under the Taliban.

Now, however, a central question remains: Will the Taliban once again trample over women’s rights with the same velocity they captured the country?

Opinion | Malala: The Taliban Have Taken Over. I Fear for Afghanistan’s Women. - The New York Times -- education activist  Malala Yousafzai

 

[lpetrich]

Who Are the Taliban, and What Do They Want? - The New York Times - "Here are answers to questions about the militants who have seized control in Afghanistan again, including their origin story, their record as rulers, and why so many women fear their return."

In the winter of 1995, a New York Times correspondent visiting Afghanistan reported that after years of brutal civil strife, a big change seemed to be afoot.

A “new force of professed Islamic purists and Afghan patriots” had quickly taken military control of more than 40 percent of the country.

It was surprising, because until taking up arms just a year before, many of the fighters had been little more than religious pupils.

Their very name meant “students.” The Taliban, they called themselves.

A quarter-century later, after outlasting an international military coalition in a war that cost tens of thousands of lives, the onetime students are now rulers of the land. Again.

That earlier article: New Afghan Force Takes Hold, Turning to Peace - The New York Times

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I can still hear Dubya telling everyone how opposed he was to "nation building." I wish he'd kept to that. In hindsight we should have taken out Bin Laden and then got the fuck out of there.