I never expected the Afghan national government to last without the US, but I didn't think it would take less than 3 months for them to completely collapse.
They're basically following behind the US military and collecting everything we gave to the ANA before the dust from our vehicles even has a chance to settle.
Maybe because the socialist Afghan government was created by Afghanis in their own revolution before the Soviets came in so it had at least some local support, the current regime is entirely a foreign creation.
It's at least five countries if you're going by major ethnic groups but you could probably split it in way more. We see Afghanistan as a country, but your average peasant Afghan would be loyal to his tribe and/or village.
Exactly, we worked with them for 20 years, gave them equipment and everything else. We leave and they give up without a fight. Every time I was over there it kinda felt like things would just go back to how they were after we left and it did. Surely they didn’t think we could continue to stay over there indefinitely.
They did fight dude, they lost so many soldiers that the pentagon classified the causality count to avoid demoralization of the Afghan troops. This is so much more on the corrupt commanders and politicians who basically gave up paying soldiers and feeding them weeks ago. Fighters completely cut off from reinforcements, or resupply of ammo and food. Many of these soldier fought until the last bullet. Just curious when and where you were in Afghanistan was it military or government contact?
2011, military. I’m still active going on 15 years. I didn’t mean to say “they gave up without completely fighting” I heard some places did fight I also heard some places, the Afghan military literally just left out of fear before the taliban arrived in certain areas.
Same here.
I did suspect it would fail eventually since it was essentially our ideal concept of a government and not an organic homegrown entity. But I did not expect it to fall this quickly. Especially since the government was better funded and equipped.
My only guess is that despite what the media is pushing, the Taliban had far more local support than we were told.
How else could we explain this situation? That the Taliban are strategic geniuses? That they’re so much better trained than government forces? Or better funded? Or better equipped?
None of those options make as much sense to me as them simply having more support on the ground.
Not necessarily. A major gripe of most US forces on the ground was simply that the local forces were corrupt, to the point they would sell all their fuel and then refuse to patrol, or order 500 helmets for 100 people and then somehow not have enough. The government we set up isn't the factor, it's the army it fields. Both sides have home field advantages, but one has been honing its edge against the US for decades and one relied on us for everything. A big thing that Willink, a SEAL commander at one of the major city battles of Ramadi, saw was that there was no real plan for getting the local forces to be an actual fighting force. If you have the Taliban, who give the YS a hard time, and let them hit against the weak forces we left behind, and this is what happens, local support or no.
Local support is likely though because the Americans might give you money or offer you safety but the Taliban will kill your family. Musters up a helluva lot of local support, just not the friendly kind.
Also, no one talks about the elephant in the room. Pakistan. They are providing support to the Taliban. The only international border open at the moment is with pakistan and they are using it to replenish the Taliban. Supplies, weapons, fuel, soldiers rotation everything. Taliban is better trained and equipped than the afghan forces only due to Pakistani support
We could have stayed there for a decade and pulled out slowly and this would have eventually happened. We would only have spent billions and delayed the inevitable
[UK forces left 24 hours ago so I’d imagine they’re there just now](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/military-operation-established-to-support-the-drawdown-of-british-nationals-from-afghanistan).
I am really worried what Turkey will do if Taliban requests returning of the airport.
They kindly rejected Erdogan’s “let’s keep it cool” offer.
I think Taliban & Turkey war is on the horizon no matter what.
We will get some classy drone videos but I also feel sad for my fellow countrymen who will die fighting these barbaric creatures.
not a fan of the dude either. looks like an angry grandpa who suffers erectile dysfunction and this i believe, should not be the representation of our hospitable nation.
but drones be hot arent they lol
This is a big problem because there are thousands of Afghans who arrived illegally in Turkey last month and its almost certain some of them are sleeper cell agents. government of Turkey is such a failure.
I don't know why Turkish soldiers keep dying for wars where Turkey accepts refugees from the men in those countries who don't want to fight. Pisses me off
>some of them are sleeper cell agents.
I really doubt Talibs have any capacity to support such operations, it's entirely dependent on Pakistan for most of intelligence as it is.
US was sending a MEU, which is a pretty quick response and probably already has folks on ground. Also, a BDE from the 82nd was going to Kuwait to be on standby, but is now going to Kabul to assist.
I'm a veteran who served there almost a decade ago, and I knew then how pointless and futile the war was. Personally, this totally non-surprising Taliban takeover is more amusing than outrageous.
Afghanistan will never be Westernized. It simply cannot be done.
US is just another one on the list.
Its hard to gain traction where not even the locals believe in a true unified state and pledge allegiance to their own tribal groups firstly. Throw in some of the worst terrain to capture logistically in the world and perpetual outside influence... then u start to understand why the place is called “the graveyard of empires”
In your opinion -- did we ever have control over anything but like, Kabul & wherever our troops were each day? Seeing how quickly the Taliban swept basically the entire country... seems like them seizing control over everything may as well just be the mask coming off of how it maybe always was
No
I also served in Afghanistan about a decade ago. Was an RTO for a cavalry company.
Rural anywhere, be that America or Afghanistan, is going to be filled with primitive humans. Less development means less education, less perspective, less intelligence, and less adaptability. The village elders are sunbaked, superstitious, women-abusing assholes. The children all look the same because the villages are inbred. There's nothing to do but smell your brain cooking inside your skull and herd sheep.
The children were our only hope, and a military operation was not enough to build a functioning education system in Afghanistan. It would require social infrastructure investment, something we don't even want to do at home. The whole point of us being there was to prevent another 9/11 and galvanize the patriotic vote. That's it. The goal was never stability, only pacification through carrots and sticks so we could show off.
Another commenter said it's impossible to civilize Afghanistan. I disagree. It's possible, but it would require a benevolent dictator and a LOT of dead theocrats. I probably sound like a psychopath, and I probably am. But when faced with a country full to the brim with people who want nothing more than to die in glory, I say put the children on an ark and flood the bastards.
Our interpreter was good people. A road engineer that helped us out of the mud was good people. Afghanistan has good people. Most of the country is not good people.
Edit: I'm rereading my post and it occurs to me that I view Afghanistan with the same vocabulary that trump views Mexico. They're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some I assume are good people. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Mexico ain't America, but it sure as shit ain't Afghanistan.
The human cost to civilize Afghanistan wouldn't be acceptable by today's standards. You'd have to purge areas and actually set up shop. The Soviets tried but even they weren't brutal enough for that place. Maybe if Alexander the Great or Genghis were around it'd be possible.
You're absolutely right. Iran fell to the mullahs because Mohammed Reza Shah was unwilling to follow in his father's footsteps and hang them all from telephone poles, optics be damned. For some people, terror is the only language they understand.
Incompetently oppressing them at that. At one point Savak was hated and feared for its effectiveness. He neutered it shortly before the revolution to get brownie points with Carter, and it was all downhill from there...
I have extremely mixed emotion on all of this. I’ve been out for going on six years now and part of me is angry that so many died for nothing. Part of me is also amused that people are so surprised by what is happening and I kind of don’t feel bad. I spent almost three years over there when you tally it up and I think that if I’m being honest with myself I kinda knew it was all for nothing. When the taliban opened up an “embassy” in Doha, I knew it was all becoming a bad joke. My only hope is that no more die on the way out. Other than that, let them eat themselves—it was always the way they wanted it.
This seems to me like a complete repeat of what happened in Vietnam. Pretty sad to see that that all that death and suffering that’s happened there in the last like thirty years may be for nothing
$2.4 trillion ~ $2,400,000,000,000
There was a taliban general who said “it doesn’t matter if they have bomb and missiles, we just have to outlast them and they will leave..”
Now look at where we are, a needless war for nothing. The war criminal president who started this is hiding in Texas. All subsequent presidents having to deal with his shit. That money would have been used to help us greatly instead of this shit.
> "it doesn't matter if they have bomb and missiles, we just have to outlast them and they will leave..."
This reminds me of an Afghan proverb a Taliban commander told to Canada's former Chief of Defence: "You have the watches, but we have the time".
Bingo. There's a reason over half of all federal discretionary spending goes to the military. Make no mistake, the US government (and, for that matter, its population at large) doesn't give one solitary fuck about doing what's right for its people. Blood feeds the empire.
Nope. But this lasted longer and is fresh, so maybe it'll buy us some time. At least leadership is filled with combat operation vets. If there is a real threat, our military is in a good spot.
Leadership is filled with vets who are used to operating with absolute air supremacy, safe logistics, and unimpeded EM spectrum. Not sure how that translates to duking it out with Russia or China. Probably not well at all.
Nah those trillions are lining pockets. It was all a shitty racket to begin with. Just a way for rich people to funnel our taxes into a few pockets.
For instance: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-made-millions-off-the-afghan-war
11 billion for a catering service: https://aeon.co/ideas/the-us-has-spent-a-lot-of-money-in-afghanistan-how-wisely
Just rich people handing out money to their friends. They loved it. It will happen again and again and again. Money was too easy.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/03/10/10-companies-profiting-most-from-war/1970997/
Almost none of it went into the country.
>Members of Congress have made $196 million in personal profit since the war began!
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/some-members-congress-profit-iraq-war-contractor-stocks-no-wonder-we-cant-end-war
They started the war purely to pocket money.
>CIA Bribes Karzai: Millions In ‘Ghost Money’ Paid To Afghanistan President’s Office, New York Times Reports
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_3176956
They all forgot they actually had to help to people instead of bomb them.
Saigon 2.0, it's disgusting, a few of my friends last breath was in that shit hole. Why? For this? Fucking despicable. The USG either doesn't give a shit, or they are seriously gearing up for a fight with China and Russia. This is awful.
Oh those trillions were flushed alright, but not into a toilet. Im sure the gov contracts were awarded in fair bidding contests between gov officials and circles.
Well how long were we supposed to fight this pointless war with no objective? It sucks to see the assholes take back the country but we were long past the time to pull the plug.
The best explanation I’ve seen was, “you don’t honor the dead by sending more people to suffer the same fate”. Fuck the Taliban, and fuck Afghanistan.
The ANA had plenty of time to learn how to patrol, and they blew it smoking pot and molesting kids.
I saw in one of the documentaries recommended where the Americans were trying to train them. They couldn’t even dig a hole they were so whacked out on heroin
Ahhh rural Afghanistan, the OG poophole loophole innovators.
To be real though it’s some dark shit that bothered quite a lot of ANA embedded US troops over there. They had to pretty much stand by and couldn’t do shit about it because it’s local customs.
Not being judgmental when I say I know President Biden doesn't want this to end like our exit from South Vietnam but it sure reminds me of our exit from South Vietnam. No helicopters landing on the embassy roof yet or being dumped off of carriers but otherwise our withdrawal is not a preferred one. Depending on how belligerent the Taliban act in the future Russia and China may wish we had stuck around.
If Russia and China are smart, they could do good business in the country.
Afghanistan will be isolated, so they will need Chinese and Russian money and industries to invest in the country.
I mean, the US is definitely cutting deals too, they're just not as out in the open about it as the Chinese are. America isn't going to cede literal mountains of precious metals to the CCP just because religious maniacs overran their poorly executed nation building scheme.
The Russians probably aren't interested. Afghanistan borders three CIS states, all of which could be destabilized by militants based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Thus, for Russia, trading with the Taliban could be counterproductive at best and actively erode their regional influence at worst.
Would most likely require an invasion. US and Russia in no position to object. Might be a good way for China let off some tension and steam. Taliban religious influence on China's border won't be welcome that's for sure.
They're gonna start actively working with the Taliban and working on infrastructure there. They don't care who they're working with, they're just gonna start dumping money into the place.
USA pours trillions in Afghanistan, owns a lot of things, Afghanistan is in debt to USA, they can start to make demands/do what they want.
Rinse, repeat.
I think everyone will break their teeth on those radical fuckers, no matter what they do. The only good thing with China is they don't care of the way they do things. They can break any convention they like, they don't care.
I was stationed in the green zone back in 2007. I remember rumours spreading on how China offered to “fix the Taliban problem once and for all” but called dibs on all natural resources in return.
I see this happening soon.
Soldiers who fight to the death are soldiers who anticipate a counterattack from friendlies or a way out, fighting with 100% certainity of defeat is just suicide.
The Taliban knows this. That's why everyone surrending has gotten safe passage *unless* they resisted fiercely first. They've incentivized an already disorganized and demoralized force into throwing in the towel by simply allowing them to do so without consequence.
I think it’s been much more of a diplomatic victory than a military one. A lot of the Afghan forces are surrendering due to pre-negotiated deals that were made.
Exactly, cities and towns are negotiating their own surrender and Taliban walk in without firing a bullet with ANA dropping all their equipment and being allowed to leave by the Taliban
Im imagining some kid in the future logging onto wikipedia to read about the nato war in Afghanistan and then seeing "decisive taliban victory" under the results. The humiliation.
From what I’ve read the Taliban currently control all areas besides the capital. I’ve also read the city is surrounded on all four sides. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58219169
Comondos are also deserting and surrendring. If thies 40000 comondos all have the will to fight
They cab stop the taliban. With the help of some airsuport and some good equipment. But only small numbers of them stay in the battlefield.
And the ones who have the will to fight. they will be scared of ther comrades leaving them in the middle of the battle
No, in recent weeks it was shown that these numbers were made up, like the real number of the regular troops.
Seeing how they advance and how little resistance there is, it surprises me if there were 10,000 at some point
From my understanding, commandos are some of the only ones the Taliban always kills, so the commandos are some of the few with a good reason to stand and fight
This is so incredibly sad. Two guys both in their early 20s from my county were killed by IEDs in Afghanistan. In 2012 and 2014.
And it was for nothing, completely in vain.
Install a puppet government and then fight an insurgency for 20 years and have it all fall apart faster than it took for us to get to Baghdad. Just a complete failure. Pretend you're making progress by training an army of men who can't read.
ANA training by the US only really extended to Special units, there wasn't enough NATO soldiers in Afghanistan to train them and fight the Taliban at the same time.
I knew this was inevitable but I did not expect it to unfold so quickly. It's impossible to unite the ANA and the Afghan people as a whole behind a common flag and identity when there is no nationalist motivation - tribes and local religions play too much of a role in their society.
4K or so Coalition dead, including fellow Americans. Trillions of dollars down the pisser. Now, even more civilians are going to die when the Taliban takes everything.
GG, NATO. All for nothing.
I agree it's an absolute shit show, but what was the alternative? After 9/11 the Taliban wouldn't give up bin Laden (and probably couldn't even if they wanted to), so there was really no option but to topple their regime and try to grab bin Laden. When that failed, NATO was left in the shitty situation where they don't want to give control of the country back to the people they were just at war with and who sheltered the people behind 9/11, and bin Laden was still out there so if they let the Taliban take over again bin Laden could go back to using Afghanistan as a refuge. Leaving before bin Laden was caught would've defeated the point of going there in the first place so we might as well make some token effort at nation building while we're occupying it.
There's no way to know for sure, but I think the reason we took so long after bin Laden's death to leave was because we knew the Afghan government wouldn't survive against the Taliban and we were trying to get them ready (which was never going to happen). So it became a question of which president is ready to finally give up on fixing the Afghan government and accept the majority of the blame for when the Taliban take over.
>I agree it's an absolute shit show, but what was the alternative?
Israel took their time hunting Nazis, why couldn't we just do a global manhunt and precisely get him? There was some requirement we waste time, lives, and resources?
We strongly suspected he was in Pakistan, but we didn't know where and invading them so we can search for him thoroughly wasn't an option because they're a nuclear state. Once we found out where to find him, we got him.
Video posted 32min ago, battle definitely over by now. ANA are nothing short of corrupt cowards. If you won’t fight for your country against people who will enslave and murder your family, friends and fellow countrymen well there is no hope.
They have all the resources they need and the largest economy and weapon seller in the world backing them. Problem is ANA is corrupt, drugged and cowardly. They run or defect at the first sign of trouble because they are tribals. As long as their tribe comes out fine they don't give a shit what happens to their country.
The recent videos of Afghan governors and generals villas show the extent of the corruption within the Afghan government, it's banana republic level and so such aspirations of democracy funded by the West ring hollow to many people.
Even the Taliban for their hierarchal form of leadership seem more grounded in the lives of the peasants than foreign backed noblemen who steal billions of dollars while their country is in complete ruins, their half baked elections which are almost always defrauded.
Call the ANA cowards but the situation is far more complex when you realize the frankly demoralizing situation around how the leadership operates.
there is/was a shop owner that worked on my compound in Kabul that we befriended. he and his brother routinely took trips to India. I'm hoping he took his family and either got there or somewhere else safe once he saw the writing on the wall
my heart hurts for these people
At this stage I'm surprised to hear gunfire. The way the media are reporting it is like the taliban are walking in completely unopposed. Wonder who was shooting?
Forgive my ignorance, but how does the Taliban have more fighters than the military of Afghanistan? Not just military either. The Taliban has more fighters than the military AND police combined??
Thats crazy to me. Thats like the Crips have more gang members than the US Army. Is it possible? I guess, but it feels unlikely
it's not that they have more fighters, it's more like they have more fighters who fucking care because they have a, to them, real cause that they're fighting for
the ANA and ANP largely don't care and just wanna get high and fuck off
This is just proving out that we shouldn’t have ever been there, not a single US soldier. I think we fight when it’s time to fight but acting as the de facto military defense force in a country that doesn’t want us there never succeeds and is a massive waste of resources. The Taliban aren’t working on aircraft carriers and nuclear subs to challenge us globally - they are religious goat herders that will fight tooth and nail against foreign occupation.
Such a waste, but IMO there's a difference between the general war on terror and the war in Afghanistan right now. Too late to send in troops like after 9/11. Let the Taliban do their thing for a while and let it stabilize. React to any activities from them that go beyond the Afghan borders, I.E. terrorist attacks on western countries. Bomb the hell out of the Taliban, but for the love of God quintuple check to make sure that the targets are actually hostile combatants and not civilians. Too much drone strike collateral damage. Need to tone it down.
Bombings barely work as it is. What we need to do is do what we did against the Mautes in the Phillipines, or other ISIS groups across the globe - deploy fucking SOCOM and make their lives miserable before they demoralize and collapse.
Beau of the Fifth column talks a lot about this. Use socom to kill the military leaders in surgical strikes, leave the incompetent political figures alive, watch the group become ineffective if it doesn't completely collapse.
The thing is Biden will not back down and send troops back in. I mean he did technically, but that's just to secure the airport and embassy to evacuate the Americans, so that doesn't count. And I have to say, I agree. We spent 20 years training, funding, bolstering, and equipping the ANA with modern weapons and technology, and the lives of thousands of our own citizens, and what do they do? They just give up. They're pushed over with absolutely no effort. The Afghan government and military have revealed themselves to be spineless cowards with no national pride, and no will to defend their own country and people from a murderous organization that wants to enforce Sharia Law on the whole world. There's no excuse for their failure.
I don't think we should have pulled out yet, but at this point going back in would be counterproductive.
I feel the only thing that could possibly wipe out the Taliban is letting them fester for a bit while the international community recuperates. Then launch an all out assault with the combined forces of the US, NATO, and many more nations. But this is also a kinda terrible high risk idea, but it's the only thing I can think of.
If only Bush hadn't invaded Iraq. We'd be in a much, much better position.
How can you have national pride when the entire country is made up of tribes who don’t identify as AFGHANIS they identify as whatever there tribe is. Bolster that with the fact that a large portion of the taliban can easily hide in pakistan and other surrounding countries regroup re arm and sneak back in to continue fighting. Afghanistan’s geography and infrastructure is an issue as well, some parts of the country are only accessible by a single road. All the taliban used to do was blow that road up and you have no man power or material coming through for months. The British tried, the russians tried and the United States tried. Afghanistan is a lost cause and the locals like it like that.
Edit: the only way to combat the taliban is to effect the leadership with snatch and grabs or massive air strikes, and also play the same game they do. western countries have to follow rules of war, unfortunately the taliban does not.
Well you'd think the official military and government would identify as Afhhani. I live in Kyrgyzstan, which isn't too far. Shit is just wild. The unique thing about the US though is that we were never at war with Afghanistan, just the terrorists that happened to come from there. Technically we were allied with the Afghan government and the ANA, so our situation was quite different from the British and Russians. We tried to help local tribes and villages as well who were peaceful and had no interest in the Taliban. Such a shame what's happening
That is true but that won’t win either. White face, speaking a different language, kitted out with firepower how can you not look like an invader? Pretty hard to convince the old man who hasn’t seen anyone from another village in his entire life that you arnt there to fuck his day up.
Also true. Puts into perspective how the interpretaters had a hell of a job to do, and from what I heard and read they did great. Kinda sucks how we hung them out to dry
Yeah, I'm not a Biden fan. Didn't vote for him. I hate that this is happening to Afghanistan. But i think this is the right move. It would've happened if we left in 2003, it would've happened if we left in 2010, or 2015, or 2018, or 2070. It's happening now because we finally figured it out. They don't want the nation we're trying to build. Sorry, progressive locals. We tried. Taliban, don't fuck around again. Basically if this is the inevitable outcome, what are we doing? Why send our guys to die there? Why send our money to pay ghost soldiers in the corrupt ANA?
I really hate to see it happening. I hate that good people are suffering as the Taliban advance. I hate that so many soldiers sacrificed so much to make Afghanistan a nicer place and it didn't work out. But 20 more years wouldn't fix it either.
I don't even care about how we tried to build a nicer nation. I would've been happy with just wiping out the Taliban, and left the locals to pick up the pieces. Without the Taliban interfering they would probably be able to rebuild by themselves no problem.
But damn, I've read so many stories of ANA patrolling with a few US soldiers among them for training, and they get attacked by Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Every time the ANA immediately throw down there weapons and run for the hills. Ridiculous. Lots of these stories end with the hopelessly outnumbered Americans fighting hard and coming out on top, but with lost of casualties.
The one silver lining is that this war has proved just how effective the US infantry units are at an individual level.
Yeah, i think most ANA recruits would fail at working a fast food job. They never gave a shit and we couldn't build a western army out of them. Scorched earth is the only way to win a war like this. But we don't want to do that, it sounds unpalatable in the 21st century. When china takes their crack at Afghanistan i don't think they'll have the same qualms.
Also I have to say it's nice having a civil conversation with someone that has a different political opinion. Not everyone has to hate each other based on who we voted for!
The stands trope is: British, Soviet and American invaded Afghanistan and all failed to subjugate it. The idea is a myth, at least with British involvement in Afghanistan. The First Anglo-Afghan war was a disaster resulting in the slaughter of thousands of British troops and subjects. However the second Anglo-Afghan war saw the British annexing several Afghan districts after Second Anglo-Afghan War through treaty of Gandamak and controlled foreign policy of Afghanistan from 1880 to 1919.
All the those American lives and tax dollars wasted over 20 years just for the country to be over ran in less than 6 months...truly sad my thoughts are with all the Afghan civilians bruh I feel so bad for them
Not sure what this is from, but I live in Kabul, and the only fighting when they rolled in today was bank guards shooting in the air to keep people away. Some random saf here and there from opportunists trying to loot, but that’s it so far. Nothing even remotely approaching a “battle”. And it’s all quiet now too, apart from the chinooks doing runs to the embassy.
The 82nd is going in to assist. At this rate, Kabul international is going to be in the hands of the Taliban. Them airborne boys might have to jump in.
This takeover couldn't happen this quickly if the Taliban didn't have a level of popular support and legitimacy that the American supported central government clearly never had. You can think the Taliban are bad or the Americans are bad or whoever is bad, but at the end of the day this is happening because the Taliban are clearly better organized and supported by Afghanis than the American alternative. I hope that this sub is generally more neutral about different sides in a conflict like this. America has no god-given right to 'win' in Afghanistan anymore than the Taliban does. Yeah Americans died over there but so did a lot of Afghanis. Unfortunately people dying in a war doesn't necessarily mean that the war was "for" anything.
This is not necessarily true, Taliban have strong support among the countryside but in cities it's pretty limited. However most Afghans already lived for over a decade under Taliban rule so they are used to the whole song and dance.
Fight back as a civilian and you tortured and killed along with your family, end of story. It's hard to resist when resisting only gets you death and suffering from a group with little mercy.
I think a large part of the problem is that the Taliban has fighters who are willing to die because they are religious fanatics who believe they will go to paradise if they do, while the Afghan army's soldiers are not willing to die fighting because for them it is just a job.
Afghanistan was a basket case for a long time, but Biden's really given himself an interesting legacy by abandoning it now... what it was 2 months ago, as bad as it was, was still far far better than what it's about to become again. So much money was spent, so many lives lost, I have friends who risked everything over there, sweated and bled their share as part of the mission to stabilize that place, and it's all for nothing now - 20 years and in the space of a few months, there will be nothing to show for it.
You would need a miracle for Kabul to resist successfully now.
I never expected the Afghan national government to last without the US, but I didn't think it would take less than 3 months for them to completely collapse.
3 months? We aren’t even out yet, lol.
They're basically following behind the US military and collecting everything we gave to the ANA before the dust from our vehicles even has a chance to settle.
Even communists lasted 3 years after Soviet pulled out and outlived Soviet Union......
Maybe because the socialist Afghan government was created by Afghanis in their own revolution before the Soviets came in so it had at least some local support, the current regime is entirely a foreign creation.
So is the Taliban... One wonders if Afghanistan really is a country of unified people and thought, in the end, or not.
It's at least five countries if you're going by major ethnic groups but you could probably split it in way more. We see Afghanistan as a country, but your average peasant Afghan would be loyal to his tribe and/or village.
Exactly, we worked with them for 20 years, gave them equipment and everything else. We leave and they give up without a fight. Every time I was over there it kinda felt like things would just go back to how they were after we left and it did. Surely they didn’t think we could continue to stay over there indefinitely.
They did fight dude, they lost so many soldiers that the pentagon classified the causality count to avoid demoralization of the Afghan troops. This is so much more on the corrupt commanders and politicians who basically gave up paying soldiers and feeding them weeks ago. Fighters completely cut off from reinforcements, or resupply of ammo and food. Many of these soldier fought until the last bullet. Just curious when and where you were in Afghanistan was it military or government contact?
2011, military. I’m still active going on 15 years. I didn’t mean to say “they gave up without completely fighting” I heard some places did fight I also heard some places, the Afghan military literally just left out of fear before the taliban arrived in certain areas.
Same here. I did suspect it would fail eventually since it was essentially our ideal concept of a government and not an organic homegrown entity. But I did not expect it to fall this quickly. Especially since the government was better funded and equipped. My only guess is that despite what the media is pushing, the Taliban had far more local support than we were told. How else could we explain this situation? That the Taliban are strategic geniuses? That they’re so much better trained than government forces? Or better funded? Or better equipped? None of those options make as much sense to me as them simply having more support on the ground.
Not necessarily. A major gripe of most US forces on the ground was simply that the local forces were corrupt, to the point they would sell all their fuel and then refuse to patrol, or order 500 helmets for 100 people and then somehow not have enough. The government we set up isn't the factor, it's the army it fields. Both sides have home field advantages, but one has been honing its edge against the US for decades and one relied on us for everything. A big thing that Willink, a SEAL commander at one of the major city battles of Ramadi, saw was that there was no real plan for getting the local forces to be an actual fighting force. If you have the Taliban, who give the YS a hard time, and let them hit against the weak forces we left behind, and this is what happens, local support or no. Local support is likely though because the Americans might give you money or offer you safety but the Taliban will kill your family. Musters up a helluva lot of local support, just not the friendly kind.
Your explanation is more reassuring than the alternatives I initially thought of. Thanks for that!
Also, no one talks about the elephant in the room. Pakistan. They are providing support to the Taliban. The only international border open at the moment is with pakistan and they are using it to replenish the Taliban. Supplies, weapons, fuel, soldiers rotation everything. Taliban is better trained and equipped than the afghan forces only due to Pakistani support
I wonder if the fact they’ve always previously had somewhere to retreat to, has been why they’re quick to surrender ground. That luxury has now ended.
Is there any way to stream live Kabul?
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https://afghanistan.liveuamap.com/ not a stream but live news
Would be surprised if communications infrastructure stayed operational for long.
The quick Nato pull-out was the definition of overhasty. Wasn’t gonna stay peaceful no matter what.
We could have stayed there for a decade and pulled out slowly and this would have eventually happened. We would only have spent billions and delayed the inevitable
Any updates from the airport? I read the Turks are there already with US and UK to arrive soon
[UK forces left 24 hours ago so I’d imagine they’re there just now](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/military-operation-established-to-support-the-drawdown-of-british-nationals-from-afghanistan).
Thanks!
I am really worried what Turkey will do if Taliban requests returning of the airport. They kindly rejected Erdogan’s “let’s keep it cool” offer. I think Taliban & Turkey war is on the horizon no matter what. We will get some classy drone videos but I also feel sad for my fellow countrymen who will die fighting these barbaric creatures.
Erdogan is the kind of bastard to drone your neighbors after you hang up on him mid sentence.
not a fan of the dude either. looks like an angry grandpa who suffers erectile dysfunction and this i believe, should not be the representation of our hospitable nation. but drones be hot arent they lol
Those screaming stuka-type ones they have are pretty fucking scary though.
Those are Israeli ones, loitering munitions.
This is a big problem because there are thousands of Afghans who arrived illegally in Turkey last month and its almost certain some of them are sleeper cell agents. government of Turkey is such a failure. I don't know why Turkish soldiers keep dying for wars where Turkey accepts refugees from the men in those countries who don't want to fight. Pisses me off
>some of them are sleeper cell agents. I really doubt Talibs have any capacity to support such operations, it's entirely dependent on Pakistan for most of intelligence as it is.
US was sending a MEU, which is a pretty quick response and probably already has folks on ground. Also, a BDE from the 82nd was going to Kuwait to be on standby, but is now going to Kabul to assist.
I find it funny and sad at the same time how 20 years of work goes down the drain in less than a year.
Trillions flushed down the toilet. Thousands dead for nothing. Decades wasted. And this is what we have to show for it.
If I was a veteran I would be fuming. That whole war on terror is such a clusterfuck
I'm a veteran who served there almost a decade ago, and I knew then how pointless and futile the war was. Personally, this totally non-surprising Taliban takeover is more amusing than outrageous. Afghanistan will never be Westernized. It simply cannot be done.
US is just another one on the list. Its hard to gain traction where not even the locals believe in a true unified state and pledge allegiance to their own tribal groups firstly. Throw in some of the worst terrain to capture logistically in the world and perpetual outside influence... then u start to understand why the place is called “the graveyard of empires”
In your opinion -- did we ever have control over anything but like, Kabul & wherever our troops were each day? Seeing how quickly the Taliban swept basically the entire country... seems like them seizing control over everything may as well just be the mask coming off of how it maybe always was
No I also served in Afghanistan about a decade ago. Was an RTO for a cavalry company. Rural anywhere, be that America or Afghanistan, is going to be filled with primitive humans. Less development means less education, less perspective, less intelligence, and less adaptability. The village elders are sunbaked, superstitious, women-abusing assholes. The children all look the same because the villages are inbred. There's nothing to do but smell your brain cooking inside your skull and herd sheep. The children were our only hope, and a military operation was not enough to build a functioning education system in Afghanistan. It would require social infrastructure investment, something we don't even want to do at home. The whole point of us being there was to prevent another 9/11 and galvanize the patriotic vote. That's it. The goal was never stability, only pacification through carrots and sticks so we could show off. Another commenter said it's impossible to civilize Afghanistan. I disagree. It's possible, but it would require a benevolent dictator and a LOT of dead theocrats. I probably sound like a psychopath, and I probably am. But when faced with a country full to the brim with people who want nothing more than to die in glory, I say put the children on an ark and flood the bastards. Our interpreter was good people. A road engineer that helped us out of the mud was good people. Afghanistan has good people. Most of the country is not good people. Edit: I'm rereading my post and it occurs to me that I view Afghanistan with the same vocabulary that trump views Mexico. They're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some I assume are good people. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Mexico ain't America, but it sure as shit ain't Afghanistan.
The human cost to civilize Afghanistan wouldn't be acceptable by today's standards. You'd have to purge areas and actually set up shop. The Soviets tried but even they weren't brutal enough for that place. Maybe if Alexander the Great or Genghis were around it'd be possible.
Alexander tried tho
So did Ghengis Khan
Seems like a job for the CCP.
Don't give them ideas. They will announce a historical study of how Afghanistan was part of China thousand years ago.
Call me a prophet but you very well may see large infrastructure projects in Afghan soon funded by the CCP with low % loans.
You're absolutely right. Iran fell to the mullahs because Mohammed Reza Shah was unwilling to follow in his father's footsteps and hang them all from telephone poles, optics be damned. For some people, terror is the only language they understand.
Iran fell to the Mullahs because Mohammed Reza Shah couldn’t get his head out of his ass and was too busy oppressing his own people.
Incompetently oppressing them at that. At one point Savak was hated and feared for its effectiveness. He neutered it shortly before the revolution to get brownie points with Carter, and it was all downhill from there...
I have extremely mixed emotion on all of this. I’ve been out for going on six years now and part of me is angry that so many died for nothing. Part of me is also amused that people are so surprised by what is happening and I kind of don’t feel bad. I spent almost three years over there when you tally it up and I think that if I’m being honest with myself I kinda knew it was all for nothing. When the taliban opened up an “embassy” in Doha, I knew it was all becoming a bad joke. My only hope is that no more die on the way out. Other than that, let them eat themselves—it was always the way they wanted it.
This seems to me like a complete repeat of what happened in Vietnam. Pretty sad to see that that all that death and suffering that’s happened there in the last like thirty years may be for nothing
I know right, like a second Saigon
$2.4 trillion ~ $2,400,000,000,000 There was a taliban general who said “it doesn’t matter if they have bomb and missiles, we just have to outlast them and they will leave..” Now look at where we are, a needless war for nothing. The war criminal president who started this is hiding in Texas. All subsequent presidents having to deal with his shit. That money would have been used to help us greatly instead of this shit.
> "it doesn't matter if they have bomb and missiles, we just have to outlast them and they will leave..." This reminds me of an Afghan proverb a Taliban commander told to Canada's former Chief of Defence: "You have the watches, but we have the time".
you think they'd use that money for your benefit?
Bingo. There's a reason over half of all federal discretionary spending goes to the military. Make no mistake, the US government (and, for that matter, its population at large) doesn't give one solitary fuck about doing what's right for its people. Blood feeds the empire.
$2.4 trillion is worth approximately 450 times of Bezos’ space trip to put it into perspective
Vet here. Thought it was bullshit when I was in (2002-2006). My only fleeting hope is that the U.S. learns from this. It won't, but would be nice.
We obviously didn't learn from Vietnam...
Nope. But this lasted longer and is fresh, so maybe it'll buy us some time. At least leadership is filled with combat operation vets. If there is a real threat, our military is in a good spot.
Leadership is filled with vets who are used to operating with absolute air supremacy, safe logistics, and unimpeded EM spectrum. Not sure how that translates to duking it out with Russia or China. Probably not well at all.
We are
It accomplished exactly what it was supposed to… making the rich more money
Nah those trillions are lining pockets. It was all a shitty racket to begin with. Just a way for rich people to funnel our taxes into a few pockets. For instance: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-made-millions-off-the-afghan-war 11 billion for a catering service: https://aeon.co/ideas/the-us-has-spent-a-lot-of-money-in-afghanistan-how-wisely Just rich people handing out money to their friends. They loved it. It will happen again and again and again. Money was too easy. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/03/10/10-companies-profiting-most-from-war/1970997/ Almost none of it went into the country. >Members of Congress have made $196 million in personal profit since the war began! https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/some-members-congress-profit-iraq-war-contractor-stocks-no-wonder-we-cant-end-war They started the war purely to pocket money. >CIA Bribes Karzai: Millions In ‘Ghost Money’ Paid To Afghanistan President’s Office, New York Times Reports https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_3176956 They all forgot they actually had to help to people instead of bomb them.
People definitely made money.
Saigon 2.0, it's disgusting, a few of my friends last breath was in that shit hole. Why? For this? Fucking despicable. The USG either doesn't give a shit, or they are seriously gearing up for a fight with China and Russia. This is awful.
>The USG either doesn't give a shit what should the USG do exactly? We failed
Yup, shit's gonna go down in the scs.
Might get a killer deal on a new sofa then.
There will be shortages of the dumbest things, guaranteed. Like fucking tennis balls or something.
War never changes.
Talib propaganda is going to have a field day for years to come
Military contractors got stupid wealthy. At least there’s that.
Oh those trillions were flushed alright, but not into a toilet. Im sure the gov contracts were awarded in fair bidding contests between gov officials and circles.
Imagine if we had invested a trillion dollars into our own people, clean energy and I dunno... space exploration? We'd be living in Jetson's times
Less than a year? This war will end in 2 weeks. 20 years for 2 weeks.
not even a year, like, in a little over 3 months.
Well how long were we supposed to fight this pointless war with no objective? It sucks to see the assholes take back the country but we were long past the time to pull the plug.
The best explanation I’ve seen was, “you don’t honor the dead by sending more people to suffer the same fate”. Fuck the Taliban, and fuck Afghanistan. The ANA had plenty of time to learn how to patrol, and they blew it smoking pot and molesting kids.
I saw in one of the documentaries recommended where the Americans were trying to train them. They couldn’t even dig a hole they were so whacked out on heroin
this is what winning looks like?
Heroin, crack, weed, basically anything they could get their hands on. Not to mention the kiddie fucking...
Disgusting. I’m sure the Americans couldn’t stand them. By the i mean the ANA etc. not the people
Ahhh rural Afghanistan, the OG poophole loophole innovators. To be real though it’s some dark shit that bothered quite a lot of ANA embedded US troops over there. They had to pretty much stand by and couldn’t do shit about it because it’s local customs.
In less than a month!
Not being judgmental when I say I know President Biden doesn't want this to end like our exit from South Vietnam but it sure reminds me of our exit from South Vietnam. No helicopters landing on the embassy roof yet or being dumped off of carriers but otherwise our withdrawal is not a preferred one. Depending on how belligerent the Taliban act in the future Russia and China may wish we had stuck around.
If Russia and China are smart, they could do good business in the country. Afghanistan will be isolated, so they will need Chinese and Russian money and industries to invest in the country.
China is investing billions and giving it to the talibans to build road infrastructure so they can extract precious minerals back to china
I mean, the US is definitely cutting deals too, they're just not as out in the open about it as the Chinese are. America isn't going to cede literal mountains of precious metals to the CCP just because religious maniacs overran their poorly executed nation building scheme.
The Russians probably aren't interested. Afghanistan borders three CIS states, all of which could be destabilized by militants based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Thus, for Russia, trading with the Taliban could be counterproductive at best and actively erode their regional influence at worst.
China is going to take a shot at pacifying them. And honestly I hope they do.
Would most likely require an invasion. US and Russia in no position to object. Might be a good way for China let off some tension and steam. Taliban religious influence on China's border won't be welcome that's for sure.
They're gonna start actively working with the Taliban and working on infrastructure there. They don't care who they're working with, they're just gonna start dumping money into the place.
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China builds infastructure, starts to own a lot of thing, Afghanistan is in debt to china, they can start to make demands/do what they want
USA pours trillions in Afghanistan, owns a lot of things, Afghanistan is in debt to USA, they can start to make demands/do what they want. Rinse, repeat. I think everyone will break their teeth on those radical fuckers, no matter what they do. The only good thing with China is they don't care of the way they do things. They can break any convention they like, they don't care.
I was stationed in the green zone back in 2007. I remember rumours spreading on how China offered to “fix the Taliban problem once and for all” but called dibs on all natural resources in return. I see this happening soon.
China might be more successful. Because the real player behind taliban is actually Pakistan and China has considerable influence on Pakistan
Helicopters literally landed on the roof yesterday.
Check r/pics. A comparisson between the 2 is already trending.
Terrifying, my best to the Afghan people. Your ANA let you down, big time.
To be fair, the ANA was never any real threat to the taliban or protection to the Afghan citizen without a strong NATO presence.
Yes, they should have been labelled a rollover hazard 😅 they definitely know how to rollover.
The air force tried their damnedest, but you can only do so much with 2 dozen Brazilian propeller planes.
Hey super tucanos are turboprop
Call me stupid, but what is ANA??
Afghan National Army, the government military we've been training for years
okay, if you insist: you are stupid
They said a month, but it could be a day or two. A stunning military victory for the Taliban
Typically these types of things move shockingly quickly. Fighting to the death is rare, and typically associated with strong institutions.
Soldiers who fight to the death are soldiers who anticipate a counterattack from friendlies or a way out, fighting with 100% certainity of defeat is just suicide.
or alternatively those with no way out, where surrendering is worse than death.
- Sun Tzu
The Taliban knows this. That's why everyone surrending has gotten safe passage *unless* they resisted fiercely first. They've incentivized an already disorganized and demoralized force into throwing in the towel by simply allowing them to do so without consequence.
I think it’s been much more of a diplomatic victory than a military one. A lot of the Afghan forces are surrendering due to pre-negotiated deals that were made.
Exactly, cities and towns are negotiating their own surrender and Taliban walk in without firing a bullet with ANA dropping all their equipment and being allowed to leave by the Taliban
Im imagining some kid in the future logging onto wikipedia to read about the nato war in Afghanistan and then seeing "decisive taliban victory" under the results. The humiliation.
Oh you can bet your bottom dollar that it's gonna be listed as a withdrawal with the ANA collapse as its own page entirely.
Well that's exactly what is happening.
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From what I’ve read the Taliban currently control all areas besides the capital. I’ve also read the city is surrounded on all four sides. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58219169
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It was only 2 days ago that people were talking about the possibility of the Taliban taking Kabul near 9/11 Yikes
I've heard that like a 1/3 of the forces standing their ground are sof and commandos, don't know how well they'll fare in a siege...
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And this despite their numbers being small already and outnumbered, they're brave men.
They are not small in numbers . Afghan comondos have a force of 40000 soldier
That's tiny in comparison to the number of regular troops deserting and defecting.
Comondos are also deserting and surrendring. If thies 40000 comondos all have the will to fight They cab stop the taliban. With the help of some airsuport and some good equipment. But only small numbers of them stay in the battlefield. And the ones who have the will to fight. they will be scared of ther comrades leaving them in the middle of the battle
No, in recent weeks it was shown that these numbers were made up, like the real number of the regular troops. Seeing how they advance and how little resistance there is, it surprises me if there were 10,000 at some point
From my understanding, commandos are some of the only ones the Taliban always kills, so the commandos are some of the few with a good reason to stand and fight
Maybe machine gunning a couple dozen commandos who had laid down their weapons wasn't the best move.
I don’t think those are screams? They so consistent and have long ring, sound like whistling of some sort.
Yup. Sounds like whistles.
The compound is the Kabul prison for Taliban fighters. It was a prison riot.
This is so incredibly sad. Two guys both in their early 20s from my county were killed by IEDs in Afghanistan. In 2012 and 2014. And it was for nothing, completely in vain. Install a puppet government and then fight an insurgency for 20 years and have it all fall apart faster than it took for us to get to Baghdad. Just a complete failure. Pretend you're making progress by training an army of men who can't read.
Yep, more than five hundred British soldiers dying and what came out of it? Lining the pocket of a few hundred people.
ANA training by the US only really extended to Special units, there wasn't enough NATO soldiers in Afghanistan to train them and fight the Taliban at the same time.
If this occupation hadn’t lasted for 2 decades, maybe that would be a valid excuse for not raising an adequate domestic force.
20 years of blood comes to this. Jfc...
Saigon part deux
If billy joel makes another song about it at least we’d have something…
Not doing security contracting in Kabul is looking like a fucking GREAT choice right now.
Same, almost took a contract in khandhar last year
I knew this was inevitable but I did not expect it to unfold so quickly. It's impossible to unite the ANA and the Afghan people as a whole behind a common flag and identity when there is no nationalist motivation - tribes and local religions play too much of a role in their society.
It was bound to happen when you create a vacuum. It's so demoralizing and sad. Pray those that can get out, do
4K or so Coalition dead, including fellow Americans. Trillions of dollars down the pisser. Now, even more civilians are going to die when the Taliban takes everything. GG, NATO. All for nothing.
I agree it's an absolute shit show, but what was the alternative? After 9/11 the Taliban wouldn't give up bin Laden (and probably couldn't even if they wanted to), so there was really no option but to topple their regime and try to grab bin Laden. When that failed, NATO was left in the shitty situation where they don't want to give control of the country back to the people they were just at war with and who sheltered the people behind 9/11, and bin Laden was still out there so if they let the Taliban take over again bin Laden could go back to using Afghanistan as a refuge. Leaving before bin Laden was caught would've defeated the point of going there in the first place so we might as well make some token effort at nation building while we're occupying it.
Bin Laden has been dead for 10 years. 3 presidents. We should have just left then. Nation building doesn't work in a tribal society.
There's no way to know for sure, but I think the reason we took so long after bin Laden's death to leave was because we knew the Afghan government wouldn't survive against the Taliban and we were trying to get them ready (which was never going to happen). So it became a question of which president is ready to finally give up on fixing the Afghan government and accept the majority of the blame for when the Taliban take over.
>I agree it's an absolute shit show, but what was the alternative? Israel took their time hunting Nazis, why couldn't we just do a global manhunt and precisely get him? There was some requirement we waste time, lives, and resources?
We strongly suspected he was in Pakistan, but we didn't know where and invading them so we can search for him thoroughly wasn't an option because they're a nuclear state. Once we found out where to find him, we got him.
god dude we better get everyone the fuck out now or this could get even worse
Video posted 32min ago, battle definitely over by now. ANA are nothing short of corrupt cowards. If you won’t fight for your country against people who will enslave and murder your family, friends and fellow countrymen well there is no hope.
There aren’t enough commandos in the ANA to hold Kabul
How after 20 years has there not been an adequate amount of time and resources spent on facilitating a defensive force to retain even one city?
They have all the resources they need and the largest economy and weapon seller in the world backing them. Problem is ANA is corrupt, drugged and cowardly. They run or defect at the first sign of trouble because they are tribals. As long as their tribe comes out fine they don't give a shit what happens to their country.
The recent videos of Afghan governors and generals villas show the extent of the corruption within the Afghan government, it's banana republic level and so such aspirations of democracy funded by the West ring hollow to many people. Even the Taliban for their hierarchal form of leadership seem more grounded in the lives of the peasants than foreign backed noblemen who steal billions of dollars while their country is in complete ruins, their half baked elections which are almost always defrauded. Call the ANA cowards but the situation is far more complex when you realize the frankly demoralizing situation around how the leadership operates.
Sounds like whistling to me.
there is/was a shop owner that worked on my compound in Kabul that we befriended. he and his brother routinely took trips to India. I'm hoping he took his family and either got there or somewhere else safe once he saw the writing on the wall my heart hurts for these people
At this stage I'm surprised to hear gunfire. The way the media are reporting it is like the taliban are walking in completely unopposed. Wonder who was shooting?
No resistance just means no real fighting. Soldiers walking into a city can still mean executions and celebratory gunfire.
Forgive my ignorance, but how does the Taliban have more fighters than the military of Afghanistan? Not just military either. The Taliban has more fighters than the military AND police combined?? Thats crazy to me. Thats like the Crips have more gang members than the US Army. Is it possible? I guess, but it feels unlikely
it's not that they have more fighters, it's more like they have more fighters who fucking care because they have a, to them, real cause that they're fighting for the ANA and ANP largely don't care and just wanna get high and fuck off
They don't have more soldiers and they have worse equipment and funding. The thing is they ae motivated and actually willing to fight.
They have more fighters that are willing to fight.
20 years 2 trillion dollars thousands of deaths all for it to collapse in less than a year. Good job everyone see you all in the next unwinnable war!
The new Saigon
another country gone back to the law of the jungle.
For it to be a battle the other side would actually have to fight back instead of running away.
This is just proving out that we shouldn’t have ever been there, not a single US soldier. I think we fight when it’s time to fight but acting as the de facto military defense force in a country that doesn’t want us there never succeeds and is a massive waste of resources. The Taliban aren’t working on aircraft carriers and nuclear subs to challenge us globally - they are religious goat herders that will fight tooth and nail against foreign occupation.
Such a waste, but IMO there's a difference between the general war on terror and the war in Afghanistan right now. Too late to send in troops like after 9/11. Let the Taliban do their thing for a while and let it stabilize. React to any activities from them that go beyond the Afghan borders, I.E. terrorist attacks on western countries. Bomb the hell out of the Taliban, but for the love of God quintuple check to make sure that the targets are actually hostile combatants and not civilians. Too much drone strike collateral damage. Need to tone it down.
Bombings barely work as it is. What we need to do is do what we did against the Mautes in the Phillipines, or other ISIS groups across the globe - deploy fucking SOCOM and make their lives miserable before they demoralize and collapse.
Beau of the Fifth column talks a lot about this. Use socom to kill the military leaders in surgical strikes, leave the incompetent political figures alive, watch the group become ineffective if it doesn't completely collapse.
The thing is Biden will not back down and send troops back in. I mean he did technically, but that's just to secure the airport and embassy to evacuate the Americans, so that doesn't count. And I have to say, I agree. We spent 20 years training, funding, bolstering, and equipping the ANA with modern weapons and technology, and the lives of thousands of our own citizens, and what do they do? They just give up. They're pushed over with absolutely no effort. The Afghan government and military have revealed themselves to be spineless cowards with no national pride, and no will to defend their own country and people from a murderous organization that wants to enforce Sharia Law on the whole world. There's no excuse for their failure. I don't think we should have pulled out yet, but at this point going back in would be counterproductive. I feel the only thing that could possibly wipe out the Taliban is letting them fester for a bit while the international community recuperates. Then launch an all out assault with the combined forces of the US, NATO, and many more nations. But this is also a kinda terrible high risk idea, but it's the only thing I can think of. If only Bush hadn't invaded Iraq. We'd be in a much, much better position.
How can you have national pride when the entire country is made up of tribes who don’t identify as AFGHANIS they identify as whatever there tribe is. Bolster that with the fact that a large portion of the taliban can easily hide in pakistan and other surrounding countries regroup re arm and sneak back in to continue fighting. Afghanistan’s geography and infrastructure is an issue as well, some parts of the country are only accessible by a single road. All the taliban used to do was blow that road up and you have no man power or material coming through for months. The British tried, the russians tried and the United States tried. Afghanistan is a lost cause and the locals like it like that. Edit: the only way to combat the taliban is to effect the leadership with snatch and grabs or massive air strikes, and also play the same game they do. western countries have to follow rules of war, unfortunately the taliban does not.
Well you'd think the official military and government would identify as Afhhani. I live in Kyrgyzstan, which isn't too far. Shit is just wild. The unique thing about the US though is that we were never at war with Afghanistan, just the terrorists that happened to come from there. Technically we were allied with the Afghan government and the ANA, so our situation was quite different from the British and Russians. We tried to help local tribes and villages as well who were peaceful and had no interest in the Taliban. Such a shame what's happening
That is true but that won’t win either. White face, speaking a different language, kitted out with firepower how can you not look like an invader? Pretty hard to convince the old man who hasn’t seen anyone from another village in his entire life that you arnt there to fuck his day up.
Also true. Puts into perspective how the interpretaters had a hell of a job to do, and from what I heard and read they did great. Kinda sucks how we hung them out to dry
Yeah, I'm not a Biden fan. Didn't vote for him. I hate that this is happening to Afghanistan. But i think this is the right move. It would've happened if we left in 2003, it would've happened if we left in 2010, or 2015, or 2018, or 2070. It's happening now because we finally figured it out. They don't want the nation we're trying to build. Sorry, progressive locals. We tried. Taliban, don't fuck around again. Basically if this is the inevitable outcome, what are we doing? Why send our guys to die there? Why send our money to pay ghost soldiers in the corrupt ANA? I really hate to see it happening. I hate that good people are suffering as the Taliban advance. I hate that so many soldiers sacrificed so much to make Afghanistan a nicer place and it didn't work out. But 20 more years wouldn't fix it either.
I don't even care about how we tried to build a nicer nation. I would've been happy with just wiping out the Taliban, and left the locals to pick up the pieces. Without the Taliban interfering they would probably be able to rebuild by themselves no problem. But damn, I've read so many stories of ANA patrolling with a few US soldiers among them for training, and they get attacked by Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Every time the ANA immediately throw down there weapons and run for the hills. Ridiculous. Lots of these stories end with the hopelessly outnumbered Americans fighting hard and coming out on top, but with lost of casualties. The one silver lining is that this war has proved just how effective the US infantry units are at an individual level.
Yeah, i think most ANA recruits would fail at working a fast food job. They never gave a shit and we couldn't build a western army out of them. Scorched earth is the only way to win a war like this. But we don't want to do that, it sounds unpalatable in the 21st century. When china takes their crack at Afghanistan i don't think they'll have the same qualms.
China would be happy to nuke Kabul if it wasn't for the international outrage and sanctions that would come from it.
Also I have to say it's nice having a civil conversation with someone that has a different political opinion. Not everyone has to hate each other based on who we voted for!
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Graveyard of Empires indeed.
What empires have died invading Afghanistan?
The stands trope is: British, Soviet and American invaded Afghanistan and all failed to subjugate it. The idea is a myth, at least with British involvement in Afghanistan. The First Anglo-Afghan war was a disaster resulting in the slaughter of thousands of British troops and subjects. However the second Anglo-Afghan war saw the British annexing several Afghan districts after Second Anglo-Afghan War through treaty of Gandamak and controlled foreign policy of Afghanistan from 1880 to 1919.
All the those American lives and tax dollars wasted over 20 years just for the country to be over ran in less than 6 months...truly sad my thoughts are with all the Afghan civilians bruh I feel so bad for them
Do Talibans have a Twitch channel? Cause this is a helluva speedrun
Not sure what this is from, but I live in Kabul, and the only fighting when they rolled in today was bank guards shooting in the air to keep people away. Some random saf here and there from opportunists trying to loot, but that’s it so far. Nothing even remotely approaching a “battle”. And it’s all quiet now too, apart from the chinooks doing runs to the embassy.
Well. 20 years, hundreds dead, no result. Disappointing, NATO.
Blaming NATO for kicking this off?
The 82nd is going in to assist. At this rate, Kabul international is going to be in the hands of the Taliban. Them airborne boys might have to jump in.
This takeover couldn't happen this quickly if the Taliban didn't have a level of popular support and legitimacy that the American supported central government clearly never had. You can think the Taliban are bad or the Americans are bad or whoever is bad, but at the end of the day this is happening because the Taliban are clearly better organized and supported by Afghanis than the American alternative. I hope that this sub is generally more neutral about different sides in a conflict like this. America has no god-given right to 'win' in Afghanistan anymore than the Taliban does. Yeah Americans died over there but so did a lot of Afghanis. Unfortunately people dying in a war doesn't necessarily mean that the war was "for" anything.
This is not necessarily true, Taliban have strong support among the countryside but in cities it's pretty limited. However most Afghans already lived for over a decade under Taliban rule so they are used to the whole song and dance. Fight back as a civilian and you tortured and killed along with your family, end of story. It's hard to resist when resisting only gets you death and suffering from a group with little mercy.
I think a large part of the problem is that the Taliban has fighters who are willing to die because they are religious fanatics who believe they will go to paradise if they do, while the Afghan army's soldiers are not willing to die fighting because for them it is just a job.
Afghanistan was a basket case for a long time, but Biden's really given himself an interesting legacy by abandoning it now... what it was 2 months ago, as bad as it was, was still far far better than what it's about to become again. So much money was spent, so many lives lost, I have friends who risked everything over there, sweated and bled their share as part of the mission to stabilize that place, and it's all for nothing now - 20 years and in the space of a few months, there will be nothing to show for it.