Afghan "train, advise and assist" 1984 style

[Politesse]

One could argue that since everyone thought the ultimate result would be the same — that is, Taliban retaking Afghanistan — perhaps it is actually better that it happened quickly without a drawn out civil war between the Afghan army and the Taliban as was originally believed would happen.

No doubt a major reason why the Afghan soldiers were unwilling to fight this war. Would you give your life for a cause that you know is doomed from the outset and you would not likely benefit from much even if you succeeded?

 

[TomC]

One could argue that since everyone thought the ultimate result would be the same — that is, Taliban retaking Afghanistan — perhaps it is actually better that it happened quickly without a drawn out civil war between the Afghan army and the Taliban as was originally believed would happen.

No doubt a major reason why the Afghan soldiers were unwilling to fight this war. Would you give your life for a cause that you know is doomed from the outset and you would not likely benefit from much even if you succeeded?

This is something Americans tend not to understand.

Foreigners, like the Afghani military, understand the USA better than the average American. They recognize that Americans, as a whole, are self centered and have short attention spans and are ill-informed, but have lots of money. Even if Americans tend not to see this.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

Pompeo Is Lying About Afghanistan
He laid the groundwork for the Taliban takeover. Now he’s blaming Biden.

Two years ago, Pompeo began pushing for a deal with the Taliban. Hawks urged him to stipulate in the agreement that the Taliban had to turn over al-Qaida operatives. They also asked him to reject any demand for a “premature release of Taliban prisoners.” He did neither. Under the deal, signed on Feb. 29, 2020, the U.S. government pledged “to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners … within fourteen (14) months.” The deal also specified that the Afghan government would release 5,000 prisoners, five times as many as the Taliban had to release. There was no requirement to hand over al-Qaida operatives.

Pompeo promised that the Taliban would rein in their carnage. “We have come to an understanding with the Taliban on a significant reduction in violence,” he declared. A day after the signing ceremony, he asserted that “the Taliban have now made the break” from al-Qaida. On Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan asked him whether the Taliban were “terrorists.” Pompeo declined to use that word, assuring her that “the [Taliban] gentleman whom I met with agreed that they would break that relationship and that they would work alongside of us to destroy” al-Qaida. On Fox News, Pompeo spoke of a personal connection with the Taliban: “I looked them in the eye. They revalidated to that commitment.” The interviewer, Bret Baier, pointed out that immediately after signing the deal, the Taliban had announced a resumption of attacks on the Afghan government. Pompeo brushed aside the announcement. “If the violence levels come down,” he told Baier, “then and only then” would the United States draw down its troops.

American forces immediately began to vacate bases and pull out. But the Taliban, contrary to its commitments, escalated its attacks. Pompeo responded by making excuses. “We have seen the senior Taliban leadership working diligently to reduce violence from previous levels,” he asserted on March 5, 2020. “We still have confidence that the Taliban leadership is working to deliver on its commitments.” He argued that critics were making too much of the latest attacks, since violence in Afghanistan was “common.”

 

[lpetrich]

I watched on "The Young Turks" news/commentary program how some Taliban troops played bumper cars in an amusement park, then later on, how that park was burned down. The commenters seemed to think that the Taliban is all alike, but it seems to me that the Taliban is less-than-unified about amusement parks. Enjoy them? Destroy them as Western corruption?

I also saw a bit on the TYT or something similar about how Afghanistan's national TV network has fired its female newscaster and female reporters. That can't be reassuring, because if the Taliban wants to seem female friendly, then it could at least have some women be part of its public face.


How the Taliban Turned Social Media Into a Tool for Control - The New York Times - "In the 1990s, they banned the internet. Now they use it to threaten and cajole the Afghan people, in a sign of how they might use technology to build power."

There was long a tradition among many Muslims of opposing depictions of human beings or animals as somehow idolatrous. That was not universal, and even many hard-boiled Islamists have left that behind. Could it be the relative ease of making such depictions with present-day technology? If such depictions are relatively difficult, then one might be freaked out at the sight of them. But if they are common, then one may easily get accustomed to them.

A 1990's Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was seldom photographed. Mohammad Omar | Biography & Facts | Britannica states "Mullah Omar was long notoriously reclusive. Meetings with non-Muslims or with Westerners were almost never granted, and it was unclear whether any of the photographs that purportedly depict him were authentic—circumstances that made the pursuit of him even more difficult."

However, Osama bin Laden was willing to be photographed, and he made videos of himself in his mountain hideout. I recall from somewhere that some Islamists have had ObL wallpapers on their smartphones.

 

[lpetrich]

How the Taliban Turned Social Media Into a Tool for Control - The New York Times - "In the 1990s, they banned the internet. Now they use it to threaten and cajole the Afghan people, in a sign of how they might use technology to build power."

In one video, a Taliban official reassured female health workers that they could keep their jobs. In another, militants told Sikhs, a minority religious group, that they were free and protected. Still others suggested a new lawfulness in Kabul, with Talib fighters holding looters and thieves at gunpoint.

The Taliban, who banned the internet the first time they controlled Afghanistan, have turned social media into a powerful tool to tame opposition and broadcast their messages. Now firmly in control of the country, they are using thousands of Twitter accounts — some official and others anonymous — to placate Afghanistan’s terrified but increasingly tech-savvy urban base.

The images of peace and stability projected by the Taliban contrast sharply with the scenes broadcast around the world of the chaotic American evacuation from the Kabul airport or footage of protesters being beaten and shot at.

Taliban Quash Afghanistan Protests, Tightening Grip on Country - The New York Times - "The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes."

The police officers who served the old government have melted away, and instead armed Taliban fighters are operating checkpoints and directing traffic, administering their notions of justice as they see fit, with little consistency from one to another.

The Taliban were stepping up an intensive search for people who worked with U.S. and NATO forces, particularly members of the former Afghan security services, according to witnesses and a security assessment prepared for the United Nations. Though the Taliban have said there would be no reprisals, there have been arrests, property seizures and scattered reports of reprisal killings.

Kabul’s international airport remained a scene of desperation, as thousands struggled to get in and board flights out.

Millions of other Afghans, including critical workers, particularly women, hid in their homes despite Taliban calls for them to return to work, fearing either retribution or the harsh repression of women that the militants instituted when they ruled from 1996 to 2001. Aid agencies said services like electricity, sanitation, water and health care could soon be affected.

A Celebrated Afghan School Fears the Taliban Will Stop the Music - The New York Times - "The Afghanistan National Institute of Music became a symbol of the country’s changing identity."

For more than a decade, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music has stood as a symbol of the country’s changing identity. The school trained hundreds of young artists, many of them orphans and street hawkers, in artistic traditions that were once forbidden by the Taliban. It formed an all-female orchestra that performed widely in Afghanistan and abroad.

But in recent days, as the Taliban have been consolidating control over Afghanistan again, the school’s future has come into doubt.

 

[lpetrich]

I recall on the Rachel Maddow Show that US military forces are resorting to an unusual evacuation expedient: US military helicopters. The aircraft being being used used to ferry evacuees from various places to Kabul's airport, where they can take some airplane out of there.

‘No alternative to the Taliban’: Russia’s envoy to Afghanistan | Asia News | Al Jazeera - "Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov says the Taliban has made encouraging pledges and dismisses resistance efforts as doomed."

Kabul evacuations resume after hours-long delay | Taliban News | Al Jazeera - "US President Biden thanks Qatar saying airlifts ‘would not have been possible without the early support’ from Sheikh Tamim."

That's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, where many of the evacuees have gone.

Taliban responsible for massacre of nine Hazara men: Amnesty | Human Rights News | Al Jazeera - "‘Cold-blooded brutality’ of killings is a ‘horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring’, Agnes Callamard says."

Why Kabul is not Saigon | Asia | Al Jazeera - "The parallels drawn between Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 are misleading."

Arguing that this isn't the Cold War, and that the US did not have some big rival that was supporting the Taliban.

Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar in Kabul for government talks | Taliban News | Al Jazeera - "Mullah Baradar is in discussions with other Taliban leaders to hammer out a new Afghan government."

Looking back on the past week, I can only think "This has been so fast". The Taliban was advancing over much of the nation, but Kabul seemed to be holding firm. Then Kabul fell, and that was it for the former Afghan gov't.

 

[Gospel]

Long story short, If George Bush would have gone into detail (during that important briefing that all of America and the world was watching) about why Osama Bin Laden attacked us instead of just saying "they hate our freedoms" you think this Afghanistan shit and that Iraq shit would have happened?

If he just never went into Iraq at all, none of this would have happened. If he had gone into Afghanistan with far more troops initially, and killed Bin Laden before he escaped, none of this would have happened. Prior to 2005 there were no suicide bombings in Afghanistan. It wasn’t the Taliban style. They took their cues from what happened in Iraq and knew they could demoralize Americans. It gave them a new lease in life. I overheard one general comparing Bush’s invasion of Iraq as the equivalent to Hitler’s invasion of Russia.

There would have remained a low level insurgency in Afghanistan, but it probably wouldn’t have amounted to much.

My comment was not about the should have, could have, or would have. It was to highlight the use of polarization instead of adult conversations by the US president. They seem to be more concerned of late with vetting sound bites than trusting the public (who actually gives enough of a shit to be politically active) to understand (if not look into it). The whole "they hate our freedoms" was an incredibly stupid thing to say at one of the most important moments in the country.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Long story short, If George Bush would have gone into detail (during that important briefing that all of America and the world was watching) about why Osama Bin Laden attacked us instead of just saying "they hate our freedoms" you think this Afghanistan shit and that Iraq shit would have happened?

If he just never went into Iraq at all, none of this would have happened. If he had gone into Afghanistan with far more troops initially, and killed Bin Laden before he escaped, none of this would have happened. Prior to 2005 there were no suicide bombings in Afghanistan. It wasn’t the Taliban style. They took their cues from what happened in Iraq and knew they could demoralize Americans. It gave them a new lease in life. I overheard one general comparing Bush’s invasion of Iraq as the equivalent to Hitler’s invasion of Russia.

There would have remained a low level insurgency in Afghanistan, but it probably wouldn’t have amounted to much.

My comment was not about the should have, could have, or would have. It was to highlight the use of polarization instead of adult conversations by the US president. They seem to be more concerned of late with vetting sound bites than trusting the public (who actually gives enough of a shit to be politically active) to understand (if not look into it). The whole "they hate our freedoms" was an incredibly stupid thing to say at one of the most important moments in the country.

IMO, Bush has been greatly elevated in history only due to the fact that compared to Trump, he was so much better! But yea, he said and did a lot of ridiculous things. I didn't vote for him and didn't support him. However, he did mostly bring the country together after 9-11. And then he mostly eliminated a threat that had attacked us (Al-quada). But the rest of his presidency, including invading Iraq were not so good.

 

[Jayjay]

I watched on "The Young Turks" news/commentary program how some Taliban troops played bumper cars in an amusement park, then later on, how that park was burned down. The commenters seemed to think that the Taliban is all alike, but it seems to me that the Taliban is less-than-unified about amusement parks. Enjoy them? Destroy them as Western corruption?

Or possibly "enjoy them, then destroy them so nobody else can". That seems to be their position on women as well.

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "There will be plenty of time for confronting the repeated failures of Afghanistan policy over the course of 4 presidencies. The urgency of the moment now demands we marshal an international coalition to evacuate every Afghan citizen who is fleeing for their lives. My statement: (pic link)" / Twitter

"Like many of us, I have watched the immense human tragedy in Afghanistan in horror. My heart goes out to the Afghan people, especially the many Afghans who risked their lives for a safer, freer Afghanistan, as well the of countless Americans who served in this conflict, thousands of whom made the ultimate sacrifice.

"It has also, for me, been personally painful. I know what it's like to be the child in the family scrambling for safety in a war-torn country. also know intimately the difference between making it out and not making it out. As with so many moments in this two-decade long conflict, I have not been able to read the news without seeing myself and my family, many years ago, desperately fleeing imminent violence in Somalia.

"Of course. the tragedy did not begin in the last couple of weeks. The hard truth about America's longest war is that for 20 years, we made promises we couldn't keep. The simple fact is that prolonging a war indefinitely would not have delivered a stable, peaceful Afghanistan. I agree with President Biden: an endless American military occupation of Afghanistan was unacceptable.

"War and conflict never produce peace and stability. Violence and militarism, even when cloaked in the language of humanitarianism, are fundamentally at odds with human flourishing and opportunity. Violence only produces trauma, trauma that can turn into anger, vengefulness and a continuing cycle of violence. That must be a lesson as we deal with conflicts around the world.

"There will be plenty of time of for confronting the fundamental failures of our Afghanistan policy over the course of many decades and four presidencies. I hope we genuinely confront them, and reckon with them, rather than doubling down on obsolete talking points from 20 years ago that fail to account for the thousands of American lives cost and trillion-plus dollars spent. I hope we will learn from this, as painful as it is.

"In the meantime, the urgency of the of moment before us now demands we marshal an international coalition to evacuate every Afghan citizen who is fleeing for is their lives. This is an American responsibility, and it is also a NATO responsibility, and it is also a human responsibility. We must hold the airport in Kabul and lead multinational airlift operation. We have the capacity, and we must find the will to get them out.

"There will also be Afghan human rights activists, and women, and civil society who choose to stay. We have an obligation to them, too. The President has been clear that the end of the war does not mean the end of our commitment to the Afghan people. We must begin to prove that with this airlift operation, and then I look forward to working with him to ensure that when the headlines and emotions of this deeply painful moment subside, we are still focused on the people to whom we owe an enormous amount."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Dealing with that would have required a nuclear war.

The Ripley Doctrine?
View attachment 34918

Pakistan is supporting the Taliban. If we try to put pressure on Pakistan we will end up throwing Pakistan to the Taliban--and now we have Islamist terrorists with nuclear weapons.

 

[untermensche]

Pakistan is supporting the Taliban. If we try to put pressure on Pakistan we will end up throwing Pakistan to the Taliban--and now we have Islamist terrorists with nuclear weapons.

We got Christian terrorists with nuclear weapons and Jewish terrorists with nuclear weapons and Russian terrorists and Chinese terrorists and French terrorists with nuclear weapons.

The Islamic terrorists are part of a great big club.

 

[thebeave]

America...Fuck yeah!

https://www.tmz.com/2021/08/21/taliban-soldiers-american-uniforms-recreate-wwii-iwo-jima-flag-photo/

The Taliban is rubbing America's nose in the mess left behind in Afghanistan -- and they're doing so with a massive troll move ... recreating an iconic war photo, for their own purposes.

A Taliban military unit that calls themselves the Badri 313 Battalion put out a ton of propaganda footage this week -- showing a bunch of these guys rocking what appears to be American uniforms and gear left behind in the chaos from the past few weeks.

 

[untermensche]

A whole lot of Taliban were killed of course.

But in 20 years you can make a lot more.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As war goes, the present fuckup isn't worth mentioning, doesn't amount to taking a piss in the ocean. But people do like to use it to make them think their cocks are bigger. And if no cock, then cock envy I suppose.

 

[thebeave]

As war goes, the present fuckup isn't worth mentioning, doesn't amount to taking a piss in the ocean. But people do like to use it to make them think their cocks are bigger. And if no cock, then cock envy I suppose.

A little bird tells me you wouldn't be taking this so lightly if the same thing unfolded under Trump's watch.

 

[untermensche]

As war goes, the present fuckup isn't worth mentioning, doesn't amount to taking a piss in the ocean. But people do like to use it to make them think their cocks are bigger. And if no cock, then cock envy I suppose.

A little bird tells me you wouldn't be taking this so lightly if the same thing unfolded under Trump's watch.

Isn't it sweet the way you care so much for poor Donny Trump.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Of all the things Biden's administration has done, this, the one thing he actually did that was right, is the thing that is causing him to lose support.

Yes, the withdraw was very badly managed. A trained chimpanzee could have done better. Still, the troops are no longer there.

There's even people muttering about impeachment, even though the end result was a good thing.

I'm not worried about impeachment though. The Whites still support Biden, and know that if anything happens to Biden then Harris becomes president.

Jason, I agree with your post. But could it have been managed better? There's no star trek transporter than can beam all our people, allies, and equipment out of there overnight. It's my understanding that Biden wanted to start the withdraw on 9.11. We got further intel that the Afgan gov would fall. Once they started trying to withdraw at night to hide it, the Taliban started their offensive.

Yes. First point was that if you have any sort of withdraw plan, you include "pack up the shit in boxes and put it on trucks." They forgot that part. Then there's "the stuff you don't pack up, destroy it."

 

[thebeave]

As war goes, the present fuckup isn't worth mentioning, doesn't amount to taking a piss in the ocean. But people do like to use it to make them think their cocks are bigger. And if no cock, then cock envy I suppose.

A little bird tells me you wouldn't be taking this so lightly if the same thing unfolded under Trump's watch.

Isn't it sweet the way you care so much for poor Donny Trump.

I got no love for poor, crooked Donny. I am a little bothered by the lack of objectivity lately in this forum, though.

 

[untermensche]

Isn't it sweet the way you care so much for poor Donny Trump.

I got no love for poor, crooked Donny. I am a little bothered by the lack of objectivity lately in this forum, though.

Biden did a great thing.

The people he entrusted with the actual job didn't.