Fate of Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence

[Milchshake]

Not paying attention much last few days eh? He's being very vocal about what he is.

Sounds like a terrible weekend. Sorry to hear it.

[beanman12345]

Sounds like a terrible weekend. Sorry to hear it.

hasn't been a total wash, got some 60 IQ ban evader triggered right now.

[PACOX]

Asking why people (Afghanis) didn't to bother fight the 20 year war that the US swiftly retreated from is a lack of perspective. A 20 year old is not going to suddenly decide to throw their life away over some imaginary lines that a retreating army half a world says they should die for. The Afghani gets shot by an enemy they barely understand so Joe Plumber back in the States can say yehaw.

[Draco-Onis]

The Afghan people obviously wanted the Taliban in control. Napoleon dreams about being able to conquer that quickly.

We gave them a corrupt, incompetent government it is expected. Democracy hasn't greatly improved their lives in 20 years. We also spent trillions on mercenaries to train them. Aside from buying a new yatch for those CEOs, we obviously flushed money down the drain.

[StillMcfuu]

Well, Donald Biden applied these standards though, as well as 300k estimate, why wouldn't anyone else? You should really learn to call out presidents spouting nonsense regardless your own political preference

300k is what their reported numbers are, but most of those numbers are fake. Districts report higher numbers to get more funding from Kabul and Kabul allows this because it gives them the chance to say they need more funding from us and they need more support. They play the whole, we have 20k people here and we can't hold it, we need you to do it for us. Reality is they have a fraction of the reported number, and being generous would be to say that half of that number is actual combat troops. Best case scenario they have 50k fighters. And that's not taking their propensity to go awol. Probably another 25% - 50% of their actual on the ground strength is likely at home because they don't care. And local commanders don't care because they'll just pocket their pay and know no one will complain about it.

[PACOX]

Apparently, Taliban is trying to pose as a moderate and civil political force.

From BBC:

"Taliban orders Mujahideen to leave residents alone
One Kabul resident, student Aisha Khurram has tweeted about waking up today to shouting and gunfire at her family’s doorstep.

She says people presenting as Mujahideen fighters “went home by home and took people’s cars and belongings”, but ran away when they heard Taliban officials were on the way.

The Taliban, just in the past hour, has again reiterated that it has ordered its fighters to leave Afghan civilians alone.

Notably, the Taliban has sought to present a moderate face as it has entered Kabul."

Its a common and easy tactic for the bad guys to appear as moderate and understanding towards a local population when outside interventionists are involved.


You say stuff like, “see, they don't really care about you, they are just in it for themselves. Look at how they paid off the traitors/snitchrs/puppets. They run as soon as things get hard, for you all to fend for yourselves. We will take care of you and only ask that you do xyz”

WE know it's loaded with a bunch of BS but hits how gangs/cartrld/the Taliban can win some sort of support from locals, even if the locals don't necessarily like the group. Mistrust of outsider supercedes all of that. The enemy you know vs one you don't.

[Biglog]

Asking why people (Afghanis) didn't to bother fight the 20 year war that the US swiftly retreated from is a lack of perspective. A 20 year old is not going to suddenly decide to throw their life away over some imaginary lines that a retreating army half a world says they should die for. The Afghani gets shot by an enemy they barely understand so Joe Plumber back in the States can say yehaw.

The US was there for 20 years, so they most certainly did not "swiftly retreat", the US troops leaving now after 20 years was planned and part of the Doha Peace Agreement. The Afghan army is the one that was routed as soon as the US stopped doing the heavy lifting for them. The US was doing 99% of the combat in Afghanistan, not the Afghan army most of which was just there for a check. The US isn't obligated to provide a free army and subsidize the corrupt Afghan government and military forever. The passage of time since 9-11 has made a many forget that the US didn't go to Afghanistan as a favor or charity.

Also, normally in society when a person joins the military that comes with an obligation to protect your country and fight for it if required. Not just enjoy the checks and the uniform and shooting guns, but if they have to fight they're curling up in the fetal position and putting down their gun and running. Or worse yet expect men and women from another country to do it for them because they don't want to. There's a word for that I won't use, but it's the opposite of bravery.

The sad part is there is a small segment of the Afghan military especially pilots and special forces that did fight with great valor. I fear for them and it sounds like the Taliban is already actively searching for former Afghan pilots for retribution. Many Afghan pilots are in hiding or fleeing. They just were very outnumbered by apathetic members of the Afghan military that had no interest in fighting the Taliban, and/or that had more tribal loyalty than loyalty to Afghanistan. No amount of time or training or equipment was going to change that reality, which is why the US left rather than waste more lives and US taxpayer dollars that would just be embezzled by Afghan generals.

[jonnysensible]

green and vegan ideology and woke culture.

are you sure it wasnt cancel culture or critical race theory?

[Biglog]

The complete incompetence and collapse of the Afghan army is quite concerning in a couple other geopolitical areas, namely Taiwan and South Korea. There have been reports for quite some time that the military in Taiwan especially has a lot of worrisome similarities to the Afghan military. Large numbers of members that are nowhere near combat-ready, where they barely do a few jumping jacks or sit in a classroom doing nothing for a few hours and are deemed 'reserve'. The same situation has been reported in South Korea to a lesser degree. A very similar situation to what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan where troops were apathetic and just there for a check with no expectation or interest in combat, who would likely drop their guns and run at the first sound of a shot.

I hope that one outcome of the Afghanistan army collapse is that the US military does a serious reevaluation of the South Korean and Taiwanese forces. If they have an attitude that they don't have to worry about protecting themselves, the US will take care of it, that needs to be level-set. We will help our allies. But the US is not going to be on the front lines by ourselves while troops from that country hang out at the mall. And if the military from that country has that attitude, Taiwan will fall just as quickly to China as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

[uuuhname]

Which foreign invaders? Do the talibs from Pakistan count or just the Western forces?

there's a whole list.


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just the fact this whole 20 year occupation collapsed over 72 hours should be pretty obvious this was a farce from the get go. no improvements to a standing army, no improvements to endear support from the local population, just handing out money to child raping warlords who "happened" to be on our side.

[BronzeCondor]

800 passengers aboard a single C-17, that's pretty incredible.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...go-jet-reports

[kamuimac]

The complete incompetence and collapse of the Afghan army is quite concerning in a couple other geopolitical areas, namely Taiwan and South Korea. There have been reports for quite some time that the military in Taiwan especially has a lot of worrisome similarities to the Afghan military. Large numbers of members that are nowhere near combat-ready, where they barely do a few jumping jacks or sit in a classroom doing nothing for a few hours and are deemed 'reserve'. The same situation has been reported in South Korea to a lesser degree. A very similar situation to what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan where troops were apathetic and just there for a check with no expectation or interest in combat, who would likely drop their guns and run at the first sound of a shot.

I hope that one outcome of the Afghanistan army collapse is that the US military does a serious reevaluation of the South Korean and Taiwanese forces. If they have an attitude that they don't have to worry about protecting themselves, the US will take care of it, that needs to be level-set. We will help our allies. But the US is not going to be on the front lines by ourselves while troops from that country hang out at the mall. And if the military from that country has that attitude, Taiwan will fall just as quickly to China as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

like is most of militaries in most of western countries - just like civilians in most western countries

do you honetly think that youths who earn like 2k euro a month will risk their lives fighting for their goverment or nation ? jsut lol.

similiarly soldiers - most of them have never seen combat situation since there wasnt serious war in eu in last 80 years - and those who were sent to conflicts VOLUNTEEERED to go there - they were never soldiers sent there by authorities

i mean you have whole generations now who were in army , get to pension age and never fought for 1 day .

western armiers are farce too.

[Edge-]

Another unfortunate development:

Yes, we know conservative media is freaking out because Psaki is on a vacation and there are deputies to handle media inquiries during a crisis while she's on vacation.

How dare she take a vacation, it's so inconveniently timed. She needs to return to respond to media inquiries that her deputies are perfectly capable of doing.

Are you just going to be repeating conservative media talking points every day now? Because you should probably update your name to reflect that you're going to be our Fox News/Drudge/Washington Examiner/Info Wars RSS feed.

[Adam Jensen]

So after 20 years we accomplished . . . nothing.

Thank you Bush/Obama/Trump. Excellent waste of lives and resources.

[Edge-]

So after 20 years we accomplished . . . nothing.

Thank you Bush/Obama/Trump. Excellent waste of lives and resources.

Don't forget the US Congress, they bear responsibility as well. Presidents aren't kings.

[Adam Jensen]

Yes, we know conservative media is freaking out because Psaki is on a vacation and there are deputies to handle media inquiries during a crisis while she's on vacation.

Half a year into the Biden administration and they've already forgotten the virtually endless golfing vacation Cheeto 45 was on.

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Don't forget the US Congress, they bear responsibility as well. Presidents aren't kings.

True enough.

[Yadryonych]

So after 20 years we accomplished . . . nothing.

Thank you Bush/Obama/Trump. Excellent waste of lives and resources.

But you dumped a figure in a bag into the ocean and told everyone it was Osama. Quite an accomplishment

[kamuimac]

So after 20 years we accomplished . . . nothing.

Thank you Bush/Obama/Trump. Excellent waste of lives and resources.

how can you tell that - military supplying companies made trillions of $$$$ on shippements to afganistan / iraq over last 20 years

[muto]

But you dumped a figure in a bag into the ocean and told everyone it was Osama. Quite an accomplishment

Ahh here we go with the conspiracy theory. You realize the CIA was investigating that compound and it’s inhabitants for years right? They had prisoners at Guantanamo and at “black sites” that talked. They ended up transferring one of the guys that talked to a Pakistani prison, only to kill him in a drone strike later after he got released.

[uuuhname]

Ahh here we go with the conspiracy theory. You realize the CIA was investigating that compound and it’s inhabitants for years right? They had prisoners at Guantanamo and at “black sites” that talked. They ended up transferring one of the guys that talked to a Pakistani prison, only to kill him in a drone strike later after he got released.

as much as I do believe the US killed Osama, this description of the events doesn't make it look any less of a coverup...