DrZoidberg
Contributor
Is that a serious question? They surrendered when they stopped being US-backed, because they knew without US backing the war was unwinnable. Duh.
Why was it unwinnable? Here's your theory...
Here's General Sadat's theory...
I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed.
For the past three and a half months, I fought day and night, nonstop, in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province against an escalating and bloody Taliban offensive. Coming under frequent attack, we held the Taliban back and inflicted heavy casualties. Then I was called to Kabul to command Afghanistan’s special forces. But the Taliban already were entering the city; it was too late.
I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry.
President Biden said last week that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
It’s true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that’s because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden’s tone and words over the past few months.
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So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold.
First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us.
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The Afghan forces were trained by the Americans using the U.S. military model based on highly technical special reconnaissance units, helicopters and airstrikes. We lost our superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out.
Contractors maintained our bombers and our attack and transport aircraft throughout the war. By July, most of the 17,000 support contractors had left. A technical issue now meant that aircraft — a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-130 transport, a surveillance drone — would be grounded.
The contractors also took proprietary software and weapons systems with them. They physically removed our helicopter missile-defense system. Access to the software that we relied on to track our vehicles, weapons and personnel also disappeared. Real-time intelligence on targets went out the window, too.
The Taliban fought with snipers and improvised explosive devices while we lost aerial and laser-guided weapon capacity.
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To sum up, America is an Evil Overlord who conquered Afghanistan from the plucky Taliban heroes, but America lost Afghanistan back to the Taliban because America deliberately chose not to follow Rule 23 from the Evil Overlord Rule List.
"23: I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks."
The Taliban's where in power from 1996 to 2001 yet failed to go away. They've been out of power longer than they were in power, yet managed to, overwhelmingly, be the major power player in Afghanistan. Hunted relentlessly by the US backed regime for 20 years!!!
It reminds me of Fidel Castro's plucky little band of adventurers who toppled general Batista. Where they popular in Cuba? Not really. What they were was not a corrupt government backed by USA. That made them, by comparison extremely popular.
I think USA dropped the ball. Pretty fundamentally and almost immediately after taking power. They never understood how Afghanistan works and what they needed to do to help build a sustainable government.