Afghan "train, advise and assist" 1984 style

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Isn't it great to have someone mature in the White House?

When you get someone mature in there would you please let the rest of the world know? God knows we are tired of waiting.

Why do you think that Joe Biden is immature?

He's a LOT better than his predecessor, someone with all the emotional maturity of a toddler.

No worries, obviously someone is projecting.

 

[Shadowy Man]

All the after game, bitching, moaning, and general dissing of Team Biden cuz they failed to see this coming got me thinking: Imagine if Pres. Biden had responded to the surprise Afghan evacuation crisis much like Clownstick responded to the surprise Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

President: Everything is fine, it will just work out. People just need to find their own way home. There's plenty of commercial airlines to take them home. Just call Uber. Everything is getting better, you just have to wait for the new Afghan administrators to warm up to their tasks. No one could see that this could have happened. The President is doing a GREAT job, better than anyone. And those lying Republicans are just trying to make this political...how dare they. It's the military's fault, I'm smarter than all the Generals.

Who could have known that international politics was so complicated??

 

[funinspace]

Isn't it great to have someone mature in the White House?

When you get someone mature in there would you please let the rest of the world know? God knows we are tired of waiting.

Why do you think that Joe Biden is immature?

He's a LOT better than his predecessor, someone with all the emotional maturity of a toddler.

Ahhhh...come on, Clownstick is as mature as a spoiled 13 year old brat.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why do you think that Joe Biden is immature?

He's a LOT better than his predecessor, someone with all the emotional maturity of a toddler.

Ahhhh...come on, Clownstick is as mature as a spoiled 13 year old brat.

maybe he's a Mr. Bean fan? Rowan Atkinson writes the character by first asking himself what, IIRC, a 13 year old Boy would do.

Maybe President Trump was an homage To Mr. Bean?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why do you think that Joe Biden is immature?

He's a LOT better than his predecessor, someone with all the emotional maturity of a toddler.

Ahhhh...come on, Clownstick is as mature as a spoiled 13 year old brat.

Like Rudy GIuliani's son?


Oh wait, that was the SNL sketch.

 

[Thomas II]

Dude, check out those heels...I think I saw some ankle...

 

[funinspace]

A Mrs. Bean?

View attachment 34902

Dude, check out those heels...I think I saw some ankle...

At least the Saudi women have nice purses...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with US involvement in Afghanistan over the last 20 years was that it was too half-assed and not aggressive enough in fighting the enemy.

Do you know how aggressive the US would have to be in order to "win" in Afghanistan? I'll give you a hint - Genghis Khan was the only conqueror to ever succeed there. He did it by killing everybody.

Here's a way we could "win" in Afghanistan. Order the general in charge to rename himself "Grant" or "Sherman" and tell him that the Afghans are actually Sioux.

Here's another way. Kill every male over the age of 15 and every female over the age of 30. Then empty our prisons and give them Afghan women as wives.

I'm glad we weren't aggressive enough to "win" there.

Wouldn't have worked--the real problem is outside support.

Dealing with that would have required a nuclear war.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

US sadly did support the mujahedeen, but they are not the same as Taliban.

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

When did US support ISIS? That is a conspiracy theory I have seen among the anti-Israel loons, because Hamas and PIJ are enemies of ISIS. But in reality US bombed the shit out of ISIS. And to those that believe bombing doesn't work, it worked quite well against ISIS.

Bombs are good at weakening an enemy, but they can't defeat the enemy. That requires boots on the ground.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

US sadly did support the mujahedeen, but they are not the same as Taliban.


When did US support ISIS? That is a conspiracy theory I have seen among the anti-Israel loons, because Hamas and PIJ are enemies of ISIS. But in reality US bombed the shit out of ISIS. And to those that believe bombing doesn't work, it worked quite well against ISIS.

Bombs are good at weakening an enemy, but they can't defeat the enemy. That requires boots on the ground.

It takes more than boots on the ground. It takes murderous tactics and strategy, it takes war. Afghanistan was never a war, it was always more of a political policing action with a heavy helping of shock-and-awe stupidity that didn't and never would have worked.

Three cheers for Joe Biden.

 

[barbos]

The problem with US involvement in Afghanistan over the last 20 years was that it was too half-assed and not aggressive enough in fighting the enemy.

Do you know how aggressive the US would have to be in order to "win" in Afghanistan? I'll give you a hint - Genghis Khan was the only conqueror to ever succeed there. He did it by killing everybody.

Here's a way we could "win" in Afghanistan. Order the general in charge to rename himself "Grant" or "Sherman" and tell him that the Afghans are actually Sioux.

Here's another way. Kill every male over the age of 15 and every female over the age of 30. Then empty our prisons and give them Afghan women as wives.

Kill all males with IQ below 80 (coincidentally these are all taliban foot soldiers ) and don't empty your prisons because these people is not better genetic material than taliban. Keep doing it for the next 20-50 years and Afghanistan becomes more less average country. Right now, retarded have a huge advantage in propagating their genes over regular people. All you need to do is to join taliban and (assuming you don't blow yourself up) you will be assigned a "wife" to produce more idiots at a rate of 1.33 idiots per year.

 

[Swammerdami]

This TFT segment shows that some right-wingers, including Boebert and Carlson, support Taliban ideology and seem to think the U.S. was supporting the wrong side!

 

[lpetrich]

Ghani defends departure amid anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad | Taliban News | Al Jazeera

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, speaking from exile in the United Arab Emirates, said on Wednesday that he had left Kabul to prevent bloodshed and denied reports he took large sums of money with him as he left the presidential palace.

Protests in the eastern city of Jalalabad against the Taliban replacing the Afghan flag with the group’s have now spread elsewhere in Afghanistan.

In Jalalabad, at least three people have been reportedly killed and a dozen others wounded after shots were fired at protesters.

Meanwhile, at least 5,000 diplomats, security staff, aid workers and Afghans were evacuated from the capital, according to a Western security official, as countries sought to step up evacuation efforts.

Ghani denies taking large sums of money as he fled Afghanistan | Ashraf Ghani News | Al Jazeera - "Speaking from the UAE, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says he left the country to prevent bloodshed."

Monsters, Inc: The Taliban as Empire’s bogeyman | Taliban | Al Jazeera - "The dominant narrative on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan erases the decades of imperial violence Afghans suffered."

Afghans desperate to leave country remain stuck at Kabul airport | Taliban News | Al Jazeera - "In chaotic scenes outside shuttered airport, hundreds of families gather as Taliban tries to disperse crowds."

Afghan girls return to school in Herat after Taliban takeover | Asia News | Al Jazeera - "Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the group is ‘committed to letting women work in accordance with the principles of Islam’."

 

[lpetrich]

Transcript of Taliban’s first news conference in Kabul | Taliban News | Al Jazeera

We have expelled the foreigners and I would like to congratulate the whole nation on this.

...
And we would like to express our gratitude to almighty God for having brought us to this stage. I would like to thank God for giving freedom to this nation. The Islamic Emirate, after freedom of this nation is not going to [seek] revenge [on] anybody, we don’t have any grudges against anybody.

...
We have pardoned anyone, all those who had fought against us. We don’t want to repeat any conflict anymore again. We want to do away with the factors for conflict. Therefore, the Islamic Emirate does not have any kind of hostility or animosity with anybody; animosities have come to an end and we would like to live peacefully. We don’t want any internal enemies and any external enemies.

India’s midnight evacuation from Afghanistan, escorted by Taliban | Taliban News | Al Jazeera

Outside the main iron gate of the Indian embassy in Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters waited, armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Inside the compound were 150 Indian diplomats and nationals, growing increasingly nervous as they watched news of the Taliban tightening their grip on the capital, which they took a day earlier without a fight.

...
But the Taliban fighters outside the Indian embassy were not there to extact revenge but rather to escort them to Kabul airport, where a military aircraft was on standby to evacuate them after New Delhi decided to shut its mission.

As the first of nearly two dozen vehicles drove out of the embassy late on Monday, some of the fighters waved and smiled at the passengers, an AFP news agency correspondent among them.

One guided them towards the street leading out of the city’s green zone and on the main road to the airport.

The embassy’s decision to ask the Taliban to shepherd the Indians out was made when the fighters closed access to the once heavily fortified neighbourhood after capturing Kabul the previous day.

A quarter of the 200 or so people who had gathered at the foreign mission had already been flown out of Afghanistan before the country’s new leaders took full control of the city.

...
The escort departed once the convoy reached the airport, where American soldiers had taken up positions and were coordinating flights.

After a wait of another two hours, the group boarded a C-17 Indian military transport plane that took off at dawn, landing at an air force base in the western Indian state of Gujarat later that morning.

That's very considerate of them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Transcript of Taliban’s first news conference in Kabul | Taliban News | Al Jazeera

We have expelled the foreigners and I would like to congratulate the whole nation on this.

...
And we would like to express our gratitude to almighty God for having brought us to this stage. I would like to thank God for giving freedom to this nation. The Islamic Emirate, after freedom of this nation is not going to [seek] revenge [on] anybody, we don’t have any grudges against anybody.

...
We have pardoned anyone, all those who had fought against us. We don’t want to repeat any conflict anymore again. We want to do away with the factors for conflict. Therefore, the Islamic Emirate does not have any kind of hostility or animosity with anybody; animosities have come to an end and we would like to live peacefully. We don’t want any internal enemies and any external enemies.

India’s midnight evacuation from Afghanistan, escorted by Taliban | Taliban News | Al Jazeera

Outside the main iron gate of the Indian embassy in Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters waited, armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Inside the compound were 150 Indian diplomats and nationals, growing increasingly nervous as they watched news of the Taliban tightening their grip on the capital, which they took a day earlier without a fight.

...
But the Taliban fighters outside the Indian embassy were not there to extact revenge but rather to escort them to Kabul airport, where a military aircraft was on standby to evacuate them after New Delhi decided to shut its mission.

As the first of nearly two dozen vehicles drove out of the embassy late on Monday, some of the fighters waved and smiled at the passengers, an AFP news agency correspondent among them.

One guided them towards the street leading out of the city’s green zone and on the main road to the airport.

The embassy’s decision to ask the Taliban to shepherd the Indians out was made when the fighters closed access to the once heavily fortified neighbourhood after capturing Kabul the previous day.

A quarter of the 200 or so people who had gathered at the foreign mission had already been flown out of Afghanistan before the country’s new leaders took full control of the city.

...
The escort departed once the convoy reached the airport, where American soldiers had taken up positions and were coordinating flights.

After a wait of another two hours, the group boarded a C-17 Indian military transport plane that took off at dawn, landing at an air force base in the western Indian state of Gujarat later that morning.

That's very considerate of them.

Well, the very first sentence you quote explains their motive. They want Afghanistan to be free of any outsiders, so they are looking to provide easy passage so everyone can leave and they can do as they please.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

This TFT segment shows that some right-wingers, including Boebert and Carlson, support Taliban ideology and seem to think the U.S. was supporting the wrong side!

The Taliban are opposed to vaccinations, women's rights, abortion, etc. Those are all right wing foundational planks. But they are halfers when it comes to masks, they like their women to be masked.

(you meant TYT)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Condi RIce: 'Check out the size of my balls! Let me moan about this failure in Afghanistan.'

Each of us who held positions of authority over those years made mistakes — not because we didn’t try or were heedless of the challenges. But the United States could not afford to ignore the rogue state that harbored those who attacked us on 9/11. The time will come to assess where we failed — and what we achieved.

The time will come? Dude! The time will come to determine where the buck stops.

Twenty years was not enough to complete a journey from the 7th-century rule of the Taliban and a 30-year civil war to a stable government. Twenty years may also not have been enough to consolidate our gains against terrorism and assure our own safety. We — and they — needed more time.

1) You didn't sell that this was a generational investment.
2) You didn't act like this was a generational investment when pulling troops to invade a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11.
3) It didn't seem like the intent was to stay in Afghanistan for that long originally. NATO wanted out in 2008.

We did not want to give ourselves or the Afghans more time. Understood. But we were in such a hurry that we left in the middle of the fighting season. We know that the Taliban retreats in the winter. Might we have waited until then and given the Afghans a little more time to develop a strategy to prevent the chaotic fall of Kabul?

Now we have to live with the consequences of our haste.

Haste? I'd argue the staging was wrong, but haste?

Rice is completely right that this could never have been done quickly... or at all... without more time. It is a shame that she didn't feel this way about nation building in 2003 when these sentiments might have actually made a difference.

 

[funinspace]

Condi RIce: 'Check out the size of my balls! Let me moan about this failure in Afghanistan.'

The time will come? Dude! The time will come to determine where the buck stops.

1) You didn't sell that this was a generational investment.
2) You didn't act like this was a generational investment when pulling troops to invade a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11.
3) It didn't seem like the intent was to stay in Afghanistan for that long originally. NATO wanted out in 2008.

We did not want to give ourselves or the Afghans more time. Understood. But we were in such a hurry that we left in the middle of the fighting season. We know that the Taliban retreats in the winter. Might we have waited until then and given the Afghans a little more time to develop a strategy to prevent the chaotic fall of Kabul?

Now we have to live with the consequences of our haste.

Haste? I'd argue the staging was wrong, but haste?

Rice is completely right that this could never have been done quickly... or at all... without more time. It is a shame that she didn't feel this way about nation building in 2003 when these sentiments might have actually made a difference.

Well, that looks like a reasonable description of the non-alt-reality Republican white wash. But still quite the set of lies. Quite agree on your 3 points. Additionally, it was never going to work without a much larger commitment, in order to stabilize the rural areas. She flat out ignores, that the Taliban had been gaining territory for a number of years, ever since the post Obama surge draw down. In order for this to have had any chance in 25-50 years, we needed to have something that surge level (100,000) for at least a decade.

And I doubt we ever had the political will for that kind of commitment...The Shrub sure as hell didn't as he did his policies with Uncle Sam's credit card, abused the reserve soldiers, and used far too many contractors...

 

[lpetrich]

US scrambles to evacuate citizens and allies from Afghanistan | Ashraf Ghani News | Al Jazeera - "A top US general says the collapse of Afghan forces in 11 days against the Taliban offensive was not foreseeable."

First Resistance to Taliban Rule Tests Afghanistan’s Uncertain Future - The New York Times - "While the militants appear firmly in control, some prominent figures vowed to continue resistance as protests erupted in two cities and millions of Afghans parsed clues about the Taliban’s intentions."

Taliban fighters used gunfire to disperse demonstrations in the northeastern city of Jalalabad and the southeastern city of Khost, with some of the protesters raising the Afghan government flags that the Taliban had taken down just days earlier. News reports said two or three people were killed in Jalalabad.

Women in Afghanistan Wait for US Protection, as Promised - The New York Times

Even as they cling to hope of being rescued by the American government, Afghan women who worked with the United States over the past 20 years are destroying any hint of that association — shredding documents written in English, deleting social media apps and then burying their cellphones.

Current and former U.S. officials and activists described the desperate steps Afghan women have taken since the Taliban’s takeover of their country this week as a grim reminder of the heightened threat they face because of their gender.

Any attempt to contact American or international refugee agencies is a risk that most Afghan women are not willing to take, the officials and activists said. Even going to the airport in Kabul, to try to secure a place on an American or international flight overflowing with anguished Afghans, has become a life-or-death decision.

How the Taliban Conquered Afghanistan - The New York Times

Collapse and Conquest: The Taliban Strategy That Seized Afghanistan

Starting in the spring, the Taliban negotiated wholesale surrenders and seized roadways and weapons, handing them vital propaganda victories and freedom to move quickly to the next opportunity.

...
The Taliban’s strategy of coercion and persuasion was repeated across the country, unfolding for months as a focal point of the insurgents’ new offensive this year. The militants cut multiple surrender deals that handed them bases and ultimately entire provincial command centers, culminating in a stunning military blitz this summer that put the militants back in power two decades after they were defeated by the United States and its allies.

The negotiated surrenders were just one element of a broader Taliban strategy that captured heavily defended provincial capitals with lightning speed, and saw the insurgents walk into the capital, Kabul, on Sunday with barely a shot fired. It was a campaign defined by both collapse and conquest, executed by patient opportunists.

...
The Taliban also received money, supplies and support from Pakistan, Russia and Iran, analysts said. That included 10,000 to 20,000 Afghan volunteers sent from Pakistan, a Taliban safe haven, and thousands more Afghan villagers who joined the militants when it became clear they were winning, said Antonio Giustozzi, a London-based analyst who has written several books about Afghanistan.

Great strategy. Let's see if they continue it.

 

[lpetrich]

More on that conquest.

The nearly 20-year war was perhaps all but won last winter, when the Taliban seized control of the country’s major highways. Government forces had only lightly defended the roadways, preferring to hunker down in the relative safety of outposts, bases and provincial command centers.

That was part of a government strategy, urged by the United States military, to cede rural areas and focus on protecting urban centers and major provinces.

Initially, dominance on the highways allowed the Taliban to cut off district-level checkpoints and outposts, by forcing negotiated surrenders or simply overpowering outgunned security forces. By midsummer, they were able to besiege provincial capitals cut off from resupplies or reinforcements.

With the roads closed to government convoys, there was enormous pressure on the game but struggling Afghan Air Force to deliver close air support, troops and supplies. But the air force could not cope with the burden. Nor could U.S.-trained commandos, who were dispersed to hot spots to perform duties abandoned by soldiers and police.

U.S. and I.M.F. Apply a Financial Squeeze on the Taliban - The New York Times - "Most of the Afghan central bank’s reserves are frozen at the Federal Reserve. And the International Monetary Fund will block more than $400 million in aid."

Intelligence Agencies Did Not Predict Imminence of Afghan Collapse, Officials Say - The New York Times - "The acknowledgment came as the Biden administration faces heavy criticism over its handling of the withdrawal of American-led forces from Afghanistan."

Intelligence reports presented to President Biden in the final days before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan this past week failed to predict the imminence of the Afghan government’s collapse, even after their earlier warnings had grown increasingly grim, senior intelligence and defense officials said on Wednesday.

The intelligence agencies had been stepping up their warnings about the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan throughout the summer. Their reports grew more specific in July, noting how the Taliban had taken control of roads leading to Kabul and how the group had learned lessons from its takeover of the country in the 1990s.

Series of U.S. Actions Left Afghan Allies Frantic, Stranded and Eager to Get Out - The New York Times - "President Biden’s decision not to begin mass evacuations of Afghans months ago has left thousands of people in limbo."

Opinion | The Taliban Control Afghanistan's Economy. What Can the West Do? - The New York Times

... Even before their blitz into the capital over the weekend, the Taliban had claimed the country’s real economic prize: the trade routes — comprising highways, bridges and footpaths — that serve as strategic choke points for trade across South Asia. With their hands on these highly profitable revenue sources and with neighboring countries, like China and Pakistan, willing to do business, the Taliban are surprisingly insulated from the decisions of international donors.