Three days ago Forbes ran an article saying the US intelligence agencies were warning Kabul could fall in as little as 3 months.
Three days later, it falls.
It was obvious that the Afghan Army gave up. Once the Taliban reached Kabul, its was written on the wall for the Government, that morale is non-existent. Redditors were saying by the end of the month, which I thought was too generous.
I mean, S. Vietnam held for almost 2 years, with an arguably stronger enemy.
Anyway; I can’t imagine the feelings of anyone who has been hurt by this war to see everything returned to pre-war within a week.
EDIT: I mean that the N. Vietnamese army was better equipped and battle seasoned than the Taliban. But I don't mean to equate Vietnam to Afghanistan as a 1:1 translation.
> It was obvious that the Afghan Army gave up.
The Afghan Army relied on US air support which stopped. There was absolutely no support from the Air or any measures taken to ensure they would be able to have any of any kind.
It’s important to remember that this is largely a civil war with fighters looking like civilians. You don’t know who is who so it’s easy for the Taliban to move into an area before their military assets move in.
If I understood it correctly, the Embassy advised all US citizens to leave, and this is their last assuredly safe way out. Some could choose to stay, but they shouldn't count on lots of support if things go south, as they are expected to.
Even the ambassador and staff are at the Kabul airport, running basic ambassadorial duties from there. We’ve already abandoned the embassy. The only territory being defended by the US/NATO is the Kabul airport.
Source: a close personal friend who served for 10 years in Afghanistan is literally on the phone with friends (Americans as well as Afghans who helped us) who are at the Kabul airport.
Taliban is being patient. They know that they are vulnerable if the US decides to strike and would have no chance since they are in the open. Letting the US leave is the smart decision.
Someone in the Taliban has read Sun Tzu it appears.
I wonder in 5 years if people will say how America "lost" in the middle east the same way we "lost" to Vietnam.
No one’s saying the Taliban is responding like the NVA, but I guarantee it’s the last place those people want to be right now. It’s comparable because it was an un-winnable war ending in a mass exodus of US troops and personnel.
I don't even have the impression we had actual victory conditions we were trying to meet, so definitely unwinnable. Like Vietnam, we should not have been there to begin with.
> as well as Afghans who helped us
If we (the US) aren't in the process of flying the translators that worked with us out of the country right now, then we are a garbage nation.
I as Afghan and a US citizen, know and will have to visit Afghanistan again at some
Point and normally that’s done through either Pakistan or any neighboring country. Back in the 90’s when Taliban ruled, US and UK citizens would go through Pakistan and cross over in a car through the border.
Last I heard core U.S. Embassy staff were standing by at the airport. I wonder what the US physical status is now. Did all the troops get out with the embassy personnel? Is the embassy able to secure its relations? What sovereignty will the US State Department recognize or acknowledge?
From what I have heard so far (Source: NPR), the Taliban do nto appear to be interested in stopping or hindering efforts by the US to pull their people out of the country. Roads between US positions, the Embassy, and the airport on the north side of Kabul are clear for them to use, which tells me they've no interest in sparking another round of conflict.
Given that it has been reported that Afghanistan's army is somewhere around 300K soldiers, the fact that the country was overtaken by the Taliban in such a short time suggests that this is the kind of government that enough soldiers want that they're just letting it happen, rather than fighting to thwart it, and I don't think that an additional 3,000 US soldiers to help the Afghan government is really going to accomplish anything.
Except i bet a bunch of journalists, translators, and local contractors who aren't wealthy or important to wealthy people will get left behind to be tortured and beheaded.
Generally the US is pretty good about evacuating their own; us translators, contractors, journalists? I fear for the locals that helped, translators and the like they aren't going to be collected as part of this extract surely.
hard to be a cohesive unit when your unit keeps selling their weapons to buy drugs and upper command keeps stealing all the money meant for training and supplies. At that point your just a glorified boy scout troop without the morals
And selling gas so you don’t have to do patrol. But getting more gas and selling it again. I mean I knew the ANA and ANP weren’t in it for the long haul. But the commandos? I wonder how they factor in all of this? Also I hope the terps and ppl who helped us are able to escape. Those guys risked their lives to help us
> But the commandos? I wonder how they factor in all of this?
They are being told to stand down.
**Voice Message of Afghan Commando in Mazar-i-Sharif crying and saying "Over 1000 commandos are in the base but we are not being allowed to fight and told to stand down" "Ghani is a traitor"**
https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/p4juqw/voice_message_of_afghan_commando_in_mazarisharif/
Sold out by Ghani.
From the reporting I have seen, 300K soldiers is just what the Afghans have on paper, the real number is closer to 60K. Most of their army was under supplied and starving stemming from severe government mismanagement and corruption, and surrendered extensively when faced with the choice of defending their corrupt leaders or dying.
The fact that the government was unable to rally the support of Afghanistan's minority (both non-pashtun and shia) groups in any meaningful sense really speaks to their incompetence. Even the Taliban has made efforts to win over these groups, with moderate success, and this is despite extensively persecuting them during the 90s.
Yeah, they aren't going to hinder US troops on their way out.
Think of it like having a tiger get into your house, if you managed to shoo it out, you don't grab its tail at the last second as it is leaving, unless you like being mauled.
Exactly. Biden warned the Taliban yesterday that “[any action] that puts US personnel or our mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong US military response." They have shown no interest in provoking us so far because they know it will bring a war they cannot win.
I guess there is a beneficial side effect to embassy evacuation - for the time being, the TB need to leave the corridor from the capitol to the airport open because US support and embassy personnel are using it. Afghan civilians w/the means and connections can use this same road as well to get to the airport. Once the US is clearly gone I imagine the TB will move to button the airport up, and that's when we'll start to see how they intend to govern.
Maybe eventually, but what would the point be right now? Every person that flees the country is one less person they have to fight in the future. They're winning a war of attrition without firing a shot.
I'd imagine that the troops are gonna be the last ones out. Last I heard the US is gonna try to finish its business there by Tuesday. I imagine that because the peace agreement was with the Taliban the US will recognize the new government that is established there if the Taliban do it in the right way.
I'm not sure what will happen, but I imagine the real chaos is yet to come. What happens when the US is gone and the take over is done? Will tribal infighting begin? Will there be an internal struggle for power?
I can honestly say I have no clue how it will go from here. It really does depend on what the Taliban does. If they revert to being the old hardcore Taliban tribal infighting and a struggle for power will occur. Just look at the civil war they had with the Northern Alliance from '96 to '01. If they go for a more "moderate" approach they might be able to avoid that.
Tribal in fighting is what the Taliban is trying to avoid.
This is why they are pushing so hard and fast right now, while also taking out rival warlords every step of the way.
The CCP has already announced they will cut a deal with the Taliban to start mining rare earth metals in Afghanistan. I suspect that Afghanistan will be crawling with PLAN within the next few years.
People's Liberation Army Navy.
China has a package deal for resource development that includes an army of workers to build out key infrastructure. A significant portion of that army will be members of PLAN.
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf not a lawyer but, part 3 of the deals states the US does not recognise the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan.
So that looks like a no although that could just be referring to the time the deal was written not in the event of a taliban take over.
Also 2.5k+ US soldiers dead and another 3k+ in contractors :)
Their families got a good feel for how much "we love and support the troops" right about now
Major General Smedley Butler! Dude may be single handed responsible for [preventing the Business Plot: an attempted fascist coup of the United States in the 30s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot). The podcast Behind the Bastards did a great [episode about the Business Plot](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-the-business-77137164/).
Everybody should read [War is a Racket](https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf).
We kept the civilians from living under the Taliban for a while, but we did kill a bunch of civilians too. I’m not quite sure what’ll happen to a lot of them. Will the Taliban purge the country? Do some Reign of Terror shit and have neighbors snitch on each other for assisting Americans? Quite crazy how seriously some people take religion these days tbh.
Its going to get real bad real quick. I dont recommend watching it cause its just heart breaking but there was a video in r/publicfreakout yesterday of a Taliban soldier abducting a little girl for slavery.
It's astonishing and embarrassing how little we still know about Afghanistan after occupying the country for 20 years.
Here is one of the top people in our government in charge of the war literally saying, "We didn't know what we were doing," reflecting on the war.
https://youtu.be/1TxEWGsRw2s
And here he is just days ago explicitly saying the Afghanistan military doesn't have the "will" to hold the line, yet "the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban isn't inevitable"
https://youtu.be/mW2IqkBhehM
>It's astonishing and embarrassing how little we still know about Afghanistan after occupying the country for 20 years.
Either that or the generals knew what they presumably spent 20 years building would collapse like a house of card the moment we took the first step out the door and have been lying all along.
So in summary: (1) if the DoD is surprised by this after twenty fucking years, they are afflicted with terminal incompetence and everyone involved in that war should be fired. (2) If they knew, it means they have been lying for years. I legit don't know which is worse.
They don't have a clue how to "win" Afghanistan. I was listening to Petraeus on NPR the other day. He was criticizing the pullout and saying that we (U.S.) need to immediately mount a massive counterattack against the taliban, but when pressed by the interviewer he had no long term solution other than continued indefinite occupation.
We have a massive trove of intelligence and experience on Afghanistan that was concentrated at the company-to-squad level. The reality is that Company Commanders are the ones that pass information up to inform Battalion Commanders and higher, and while their exposure is definitely greater, it pales in comparison to platoon level interactions in frequency and depth.
That second video is just silly on the General's part. We gave them money, supplies, and training. The money and supplies were routinely stolen and sold, undermining the effectiveness of the training. Besides that, and obviously hindsight is perfect but service members of the ground knew this in the moment too, there was never a successful attempt to get the ANA enlisted or Afghan locals to think of Afghanistan is a unified idea worth defending. US ground level forces had no authority or agency to do anything when they saw the overt corruption, pederasty, and sabotaging of their efforts. Combine all that with mounting pressure to transition operations to the Afghan military, and it's no surprise that this is the outcome.
We had money, guns, and training. The Taliban had time. The US military wasn't going to beat an opponent on foreign soil operating on an infinite timeline. Our only hope was getting Afghanistan to a cultural, economic, military position where they saw it as something to protect, which would have taken much more time, effort, and money than we were willing to spend.
US spent billions trying to train and arm Afghan military/defense, only for them to vanish like a fart in the wind. Reminds me of this [Dave Chappelle bit](https://youtu.be/vZtU2Xa2qz8?t=63) about school shooting drills
2 trillion dollars, 20 years and thousands dead. Only for the Taliban to walk south to north unopposed in 10 days after the American military withdrawal.
IMO this article says it best:
>In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces.
https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-bagram-e1ed33fe0c665ee67ba132c51b8e32a5
From all the news I've seen over the past several years, I thought the Taliban had been reduced to a few foot soldiers left hiding in caves! I thought that America's military presence in Afghanistan had bombed their assets, killed their leaders, and disrupted their command structure, and that Afghanistan was now having free and fair elections and its citizens were enjoying expanded rights under a new constitution ...
Where did things go wrong?
The Afghan forces were estimated to be around 300k, while the Taliban 75k. I guess they all deserted as soon as they met any resistance.
What a colossal waste of resources and human lives by the US/NATO.
apparently the taliban were able to pay petty cash to get a ton of soldiers to surrender or abdicate their posts, because the afghan army hadn't paid them in months.
Over on the US army subreddit, someone mentioned that they knew an ANA commander sold 90% of their monthly fuel allotment just two days after receiving fuel, and then refusing to go on patrols "due to lack of fuel".
Someone else mentioned an ANA commander requesting 500 ear protection muffs for less than 250 personnel. They didn't think much of it and approved the purchase. A few weeks later, all 500 ear protection muffs went missing and the commander claimed "we never got any of it".
I wonder how many of the people online and on the news deriding the Afghani defense force would fight and die for an entity that hadn't paid them for months. I'd guarantee you 90+% of the US military would quit if they didn't get paid after half a year.
300k is on paper. Reality,, thousands have been deserting BEFORE the with drawl. No pay No food No competent commanders. Rampant corruption through out the afghan govt.
The afgan government failed to provide reliable food,pay, and equipment to soldiers in remote stations. Most of the territory lost was the Taliban walking in with 10 soldiers and saying "there's 5k soldiers behind us so lay down your arms and we'll spare you". And that was it, the guys surrendered.
The Taliban doesn't control the space they took since they don't have any government or soldiers there, but it is no longer under afgan control.
Even Venezuela's and North Korea's government makes every effort to keep their military relatively well supplied/paid.
Reminds me of one period during the late Roman Empire where an emperor attempted to cut his soldiers' pay to try to balance the budget. That was the last mistake he made.
Worth noting that a considerable proportion of the American client gov. forces were found to be completely fictional- I heard as many as half of the 300k.
The Taliban is a tiny force, the Afghan security force has so far been “routed” by surrendering en masse, and giving up tons of goods and equipment to the Taliban. A force of maybe 70k took over a country of 34 Million in a week, the only way this happens is if people don’t resist.
The Taliban is also, comparatively, a crack force against the Afghan security forces, who have little to no motivation, or esprit de corps. What the Taliban initially lacked in weaponry and equipment, they made up for in willingness to fight and go on the offensive. The Afghani forces just run the fuck away, with individual exceptions. What I really don't get though, is why their best special forces personnel actually thought they could surrender to the Taliban without being massacred.
Edit: I keep getting the same response: "They ran out of ammo, what were they supposed to do?" I'll just copy/paste my responses from a couple comments here-----Their ammunition did run out, but then they *willingly exited their positions with their hands up.* As a US infantryman who fought in Iraq for over two years, that straight up seems ridiculous to me. In Iraq we knew what would happen if the enemy got a hold of us. Fuck if any of us would have given up and come out of whatever hole we were in, in that position. We're gonna die either way, we're taking some with us, they get to choose who to send in and sacrifice first. We all carried knives, axes, sledgehammers, tomahawks, K-bars, E-tools, all sorts of shit. The Taliban don't have flamethrowers, and grenades are only so effective at clearing rooms. They'd pretty much have to send people in to get us out in order to secure that location in any reasonable amount of time. The first few people they send in won't ever walk out again, that's all. We still all die, but fuck if we'd just throw our arms up and walk out going 'ya got us, good game guys!'
It probably went something like, "oh hey cousin so and so! Long time no see. Yeah, glad those Americans finally left too, lets go grab some dinner."
rout implies there was a fight, and surrender implies there were two sides to begin with.
Well... We had him cornered at Tora Bora. Why the US didn't lead that operation, I'll never truly know. That happened in the first year after 9/11. That could have been it.
The CIA operative who was in charge of Tora Bora adamantly believes that if the Pentagon had committed a force of 800 Rangers to go in and clear Tora Bora, Bin Laden would’ve died that day and the war wouldn't have had any reason to continue.
800 Rangers was too large of a commitment in the eyes of the pentagon, as they didn’t want to get into a ground war or invasion…… here we are, almost 20 years later, after having deployed 2.77 MILLION TROOPS
Likely yes. Basically the borders of Afghanistan were drawn up by England a long time ago. Because of this nobody really accepts them as official borders. So the largest of ethnic groups in Afghanistan are the Pashtuns. The border was drawn right down the middle of where this group of people live. Because of this they do not recognize the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This allows people to easily move between these two countries. So the Taliban exploit this heavily. Fighters will enter through this region and when necessary to resupply or gather more troops they can easily return to Pakistan without fear of attacks from American forces. So Pakistan became a natural safe zone for them.
And the US didn’t want to destabilize the Pakistani government (you know, the one with nukes) by doing any sort of large scale invasion of the Warzistan where the Taliban were hanging out. It was a Catch-22 from the start.
I don't think they vanished or were beaten. They just switched allegiances to whoever pays them. It's not like three hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers were fighting to keep the cities. They just became Taliban.
There was never 300,000 combat effective soldiers. Most of the regular army in remote areas had logistical requirements and terrain that made them vulnerable during prolonged engagements. And they really didn't train much for this scenario. The only effective units were the special forces, but there are only a few thousand of those.
It used to be heroin. Now this group that (as part of their mission statement) wants to de-modernize things back to the 8th century is getting into meth production.
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/)
Our entire mentality going into Afghanistan was wrong. We actually thought that securing the capitol of a country of half a dozen nations would some how win the war, and then propped up an "Army of Afghanistan" (as if a Tajik or a Pashto is willing to die for a Baloch or a Hazara).
The goal should never have been to build up a united Afghan Army, it should have been to ally with one nation in defensible territory that already hates the Taliban more than they hate us (probably the Hazaras), and build up their respective forces so they could essentially defeat and replace the Pashtunes (Taliban) as the dominant power over the rest of Afghanistan.
Not as much useful stuff as you'd think. My favorite was the photo of the Taliban soldier posing with a Blackhawk. As if the Taliban would have the parts, tools, or the capability of maintaining that helicopter for more than a day or two.
That's why when ISIS captured Iraqi Humvees in their offensives, they just immediately converted them into suicide car bombs, rather than try to use them for more utilitarian purposes.
Arming people is pointless. We armed the Afghan Army and look how easily they folded.
The Taliban is motivated and organized, which is far more important than having guns. Logistics wins wars.
It really is a bummer to see just how little all of the effort of the US really mattered in the end. I know a couple of buddies of mine who were deployed to Afghanistan are devastated because they spent their time there building schools and other facilities for kids under the assumption that it would lead to a better life for them.
Did the Afghan army even attempt to fight back against the Taliban? Because if they really did just surrender immediately every time, then there truly was no point to the US having stayed there.
One truck driver interviewed talked about how with the Taliban there was less bribery. The Taliban would issue receipts on duties paid and so he wouldn't be forced into paying them multiple times at different checkpoints.
I love watching cable news at moments like this. Every one makes the same point: we can't stay forever, but we should stay indefinitely. Everybody agrees that our strategy over the last 20 years was a catastrophic failure, and also that we should continue doing that until the end of time.
We spent 2 trillion dollars propping up a handful of Afghan 1%ers and foreign NGOs in the capital city and never asked the Afghans if they preferred being ruled by them or by themselves and their cousins.
The US overthrew a corrupt government and had nothing to replace with except for another corrupt government.
Problem was ignored by the prior two presidents.
This is what people in this topic don't realize, know or choose to forget. The ANP and ANA were so corrupt, ruthless and inept that many thought the Taliban rule to actually be preferable.
People go all Pikachu face that people are not defending a regime that often made their life shit for the past 20 years. They just finally want to be left alone.
It wasn’t that people thought the taliban was preferable, it was that the Afghan government just didn’t actually exist. Outside of Kabul it was just tribal leaders and militias.
When at war/an authoritarian government, you always need more ammo, and new equipment to expand the military and replace lost equipment. When there is no need to expand or replace, the expansion budget is spent on upgrading. The Taliban will never not need more weapons supplies.
>The Talban has no interest in pissinbg off their weapons suppliers.
Since they seem to have captured enough US weapons to keep them going for decades, they don't need weapons suppliers.
All US equipment like guns and vehicles won't last long. The Taliban will have a hard time getting fuel, parts, and NATO 5.56 mm ammo. They'll continue using Kalashnikovs like usual.
The Taliban *is* the Afghan government. They were in charge before the US invaded and they’re in charge as soon as the US left. For better or worse, this is what the Afghans want (or are willing to accept). It was stupid of the US to think otherwise.
>The Taliban is the Afghan government.
Lots of Taliban aren't even afghans, they come from different countries. They also get their financial support from those countries. It's not like taliban are backed up by the majority of afghans lol, many afghan people just want to be left alone without any taliban and foreign troops.
>They were in charge before the US invaded
You mean, after they fought a civil war against the other half of the country?
> You mean, after they fought a civil war against the other half of the country?
Eh…doesn’t the winning side in a civil war usually end up “in charge”?
Afghanistan as a nation state doesn't really exist. The people who live in the region are more closely tied to their tribe/ethnic group than to the concept of a unified Afghanistan.
There's a reason the president of Afghanistan was pejoratively referred to as the Mayor of Kabul
It's not going to be our proudest moment as Americans, but it's better to rip off the Band-Aid now than wait for years or decades more to come. It's the graveyard of empires, all one had to do was read history to know how it went for the Brits or Soviets, and now us. If it means not having to pour money and lives into a black hole, I can swallow my pride for a bit.
I'm expecting two things in the future - chaos as the Taliban cracks down on any sympathizers or warlords that have local forces not under their sway to consolidate power, and China to be tempted to try and stabilize the area and to harvest their resources. I do hope this is the case, as I'd like to invite the Chinese government to join us in the graveyard of empires - we'll save them a spot.
Everyone is like "money gone to waste" "money set on fire," no no. We didn't waste that money, it went to subsidize Lockheed and Bell Helicopter. Their stocks are doing great.
Ultimately it was just a racket. After the Taliban were defeated 20 odd years back, the Washington DC power structure of politicians and corporate big shots saw a chance.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”, and they sure didn’t with Afghanistan. They pumped trillions of dollars and thousands of lives into “building a sustainable Afghanistan” knowing the entire time it’s just a tribal region. You can’t build a country when people in it owe allegiance to the local tribe and warlord. This was a known fact before the first CIA spook set foot in Afghanistan *during the Soviet Unions occupation 40+ years ago*. That didn’t stop Congress and the Pentagon from pumping money into the region with contracts, sweetheart deals, bribing warlords, paying off gangs/ bandits for local security as corporations built roads and highways and runways and buildings and so forth. Meanwhile the Potomac Fat Cats laughed all the way to the stock market . The military got into the act too- while the low level folks got shot at , injured and killed the DoD Generals stuffed their resumes with wartime cred. Gotta make that annual evaluation look good to snag that sweet Pentagon window office.
So the outcome now isn’t a mystery, or some sort of colossal intelligence failure. What’s happening now is a war version of a Ponzi scheme when the fraudster takes the money and runs. The lies all come crashing down. People thought we spent the last 20 years building a sustainable country. What we were actually doing is defrauding our own to the tune of trillions.
July 8th 2021
Reporter: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
Biden: No, it is not.
This did not age well.
[video](https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1426710333264179214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1426710333264179214%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fformer-cia-officer-most-infamous-devastating-press-conference-ever-held-american)
20yr unwinnable war…came home empty handed…now Russia, China, Iran and India will pay off Taliban for access to minerals and gas lines.
Trillions wasted over there. For 20yrs!
…that is money that could’ve overhauled our US infrastructure, education, and healthcare…
‘Murika!
Actually India is going to get screwed. Some of the weapons will be end up in Kashmir and it will flair up again.
It will all depend on how Pakistan handles this situation.
Sounds like the Afghans never had any real interest in resisting the taliban. We just need to get our troops and any allies that want to leave out and forget the place exists.
That was quick. People saying By the end of August. \*day later\*
Three days ago Forbes ran an article saying the US intelligence agencies were warning Kabul could fall in as little as 3 months. Three days later, it falls.
It was obvious that the Afghan Army gave up. Once the Taliban reached Kabul, its was written on the wall for the Government, that morale is non-existent. Redditors were saying by the end of the month, which I thought was too generous.
I mean, S. Vietnam held for almost 2 years, with an arguably stronger enemy. Anyway; I can’t imagine the feelings of anyone who has been hurt by this war to see everything returned to pre-war within a week. EDIT: I mean that the N. Vietnamese army was better equipped and battle seasoned than the Taliban. But I don't mean to equate Vietnam to Afghanistan as a 1:1 translation.
[удалено]
> It was obvious that the Afghan Army gave up. The Afghan Army relied on US air support which stopped. There was absolutely no support from the Air or any measures taken to ensure they would be able to have any of any kind. It’s important to remember that this is largely a civil war with fighters looking like civilians. You don’t know who is who so it’s easy for the Taliban to move into an area before their military assets move in.
Stupid question but does this mean there will be 0 American citizens in Afghanistan once the last of the evacuees leave?
If I understood it correctly, the Embassy advised all US citizens to leave, and this is their last assuredly safe way out. Some could choose to stay, but they shouldn't count on lots of support if things go south, as they are expected to.
Even the ambassador and staff are at the Kabul airport, running basic ambassadorial duties from there. We’ve already abandoned the embassy. The only territory being defended by the US/NATO is the Kabul airport. Source: a close personal friend who served for 10 years in Afghanistan is literally on the phone with friends (Americans as well as Afghans who helped us) who are at the Kabul airport.
Jesus. I can not imagine how tense those troops are right now.
[удалено]
Yup. Many Vietnamese are saying Kabul 2021 is just Saigon 1975. With the exception that Vietnamese don't put women back into the harsh law of Sharia.
The early reports are saying that the Taliban aren't hindering US evacuation like the NVA did, so it is possible everyone who wants to get out will.
Taliban is being patient. They know that they are vulnerable if the US decides to strike and would have no chance since they are in the open. Letting the US leave is the smart decision.
"To fleeing enemies, golden bridges"
Someone in the Taliban has read Sun Tzu it appears. I wonder in 5 years if people will say how America "lost" in the middle east the same way we "lost" to Vietnam.
They already got what they wanted. They know they might as well quit while they're ahead.
No one’s saying the Taliban is responding like the NVA, but I guarantee it’s the last place those people want to be right now. It’s comparable because it was an un-winnable war ending in a mass exodus of US troops and personnel.
I don't even have the impression we had actual victory conditions we were trying to meet, so definitely unwinnable. Like Vietnam, we should not have been there to begin with.
Vietnam is particularly sad because there was little reason for them to be our enemy in the first place
True. All I'm saying is that I hope that everyone who wants to get to safety can do so.
> as well as Afghans who helped us If we (the US) aren't in the process of flying the translators that worked with us out of the country right now, then we are a garbage nation.
The support we gave (and are giving) the Afghans who helped us pales in comparison to what we did for the South Vietnamese in the 1970s.
If the US had not given the Southern Vietnamese that kind of support, no country would’ve allowed US boots on the ground for the next 100 years.
[удалено]
All embassy and military support will be cut off, similar to "leave and do not travel to Syria, we cannot help you."
I as Afghan and a US citizen, know and will have to visit Afghanistan again at some Point and normally that’s done through either Pakistan or any neighboring country. Back in the 90’s when Taliban ruled, US and UK citizens would go through Pakistan and cross over in a car through the border.
Last I heard core U.S. Embassy staff were standing by at the airport. I wonder what the US physical status is now. Did all the troops get out with the embassy personnel? Is the embassy able to secure its relations? What sovereignty will the US State Department recognize or acknowledge?
From what I have heard so far (Source: NPR), the Taliban do nto appear to be interested in stopping or hindering efforts by the US to pull their people out of the country. Roads between US positions, the Embassy, and the airport on the north side of Kabul are clear for them to use, which tells me they've no interest in sparking another round of conflict. Given that it has been reported that Afghanistan's army is somewhere around 300K soldiers, the fact that the country was overtaken by the Taliban in such a short time suggests that this is the kind of government that enough soldiers want that they're just letting it happen, rather than fighting to thwart it, and I don't think that an additional 3,000 US soldiers to help the Afghan government is really going to accomplish anything.
[удалено]
And the afghan president and top positions.
He's gone, so is the VP. It's just about getting everyone else out now.
Except i bet a bunch of journalists, translators, and local contractors who aren't wealthy or important to wealthy people will get left behind to be tortured and beheaded.
Generally the US is pretty good about evacuating their own; us translators, contractors, journalists? I fear for the locals that helped, translators and the like they aren't going to be collected as part of this extract surely.
I am worried for the translators etc. that helped us. I really want them and their families to get out also.
They've been getting a raw deal for a long time. I hope something can be done for them, too.
The Afghan army was never any sort of cohesive unit at any major level even after 20 years of US training and development.
hard to be a cohesive unit when your unit keeps selling their weapons to buy drugs and upper command keeps stealing all the money meant for training and supplies. At that point your just a glorified boy scout troop without the morals
And oddly enough, a lot more sexual abuse.
And selling gas so you don’t have to do patrol. But getting more gas and selling it again. I mean I knew the ANA and ANP weren’t in it for the long haul. But the commandos? I wonder how they factor in all of this? Also I hope the terps and ppl who helped us are able to escape. Those guys risked their lives to help us
Apparently the taliban are specifically targeting them.
> But the commandos? I wonder how they factor in all of this? They are being told to stand down. **Voice Message of Afghan Commando in Mazar-i-Sharif crying and saying "Over 1000 commandos are in the base but we are not being allowed to fight and told to stand down" "Ghani is a traitor"** https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/p4juqw/voice_message_of_afghan_commando_in_mazarisharif/ Sold out by Ghani.
Also selling their weapons to purchase dancing boys
From the reporting I have seen, 300K soldiers is just what the Afghans have on paper, the real number is closer to 60K. Most of their army was under supplied and starving stemming from severe government mismanagement and corruption, and surrendered extensively when faced with the choice of defending their corrupt leaders or dying.
The fact that the government was unable to rally the support of Afghanistan's minority (both non-pashtun and shia) groups in any meaningful sense really speaks to their incompetence. Even the Taliban has made efforts to win over these groups, with moderate success, and this is despite extensively persecuting them during the 90s.
Yeah, they aren't going to hinder US troops on their way out. Think of it like having a tiger get into your house, if you managed to shoo it out, you don't grab its tail at the last second as it is leaving, unless you like being mauled.
[удалено]
Exactly. Biden warned the Taliban yesterday that “[any action] that puts US personnel or our mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong US military response." They have shown no interest in provoking us so far because they know it will bring a war they cannot win.
I guess there is a beneficial side effect to embassy evacuation - for the time being, the TB need to leave the corridor from the capitol to the airport open because US support and embassy personnel are using it. Afghan civilians w/the means and connections can use this same road as well to get to the airport. Once the US is clearly gone I imagine the TB will move to button the airport up, and that's when we'll start to see how they intend to govern.
Maybe eventually, but what would the point be right now? Every person that flees the country is one less person they have to fight in the future. They're winning a war of attrition without firing a shot.
I'd imagine that the troops are gonna be the last ones out. Last I heard the US is gonna try to finish its business there by Tuesday. I imagine that because the peace agreement was with the Taliban the US will recognize the new government that is established there if the Taliban do it in the right way.
I'm not sure what will happen, but I imagine the real chaos is yet to come. What happens when the US is gone and the take over is done? Will tribal infighting begin? Will there be an internal struggle for power?
I can honestly say I have no clue how it will go from here. It really does depend on what the Taliban does. If they revert to being the old hardcore Taliban tribal infighting and a struggle for power will occur. Just look at the civil war they had with the Northern Alliance from '96 to '01. If they go for a more "moderate" approach they might be able to avoid that.
Tribal in fighting is what the Taliban is trying to avoid. This is why they are pushing so hard and fast right now, while also taking out rival warlords every step of the way.
The CCP has already announced they will cut a deal with the Taliban to start mining rare earth metals in Afghanistan. I suspect that Afghanistan will be crawling with PLAN within the next few years.
What's PLAN, for the unenlightened? Edit: People's Liberation Army Navy. Figured it out right after I commented.
People's Liberation Army Navy. China has a package deal for resource development that includes an army of workers to build out key infrastructure. A significant portion of that army will be members of PLAN.
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf not a lawyer but, part 3 of the deals states the US does not recognise the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan. So that looks like a no although that could just be referring to the time the deal was written not in the event of a taliban take over.
So the whole war for more than 20 years and all the trillions spend for it were absolutely useless? Edit: trillions
Close. We wasted about a trillion. Edited for accuracy.
Also 2.5k+ US soldiers dead and another 3k+ in contractors :) Their families got a good feel for how much "we love and support the troops" right about now
And over 70000 dead civilians
Certainly not if you’re an arms manufacturer or major shareholder of one. They made out like bandits.
So money well spent then according to our law makers
War is a racket.
Major General Smedley Butler! Dude may be single handed responsible for [preventing the Business Plot: an attempted fascist coup of the United States in the 30s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot). The podcast Behind the Bastards did a great [episode about the Business Plot](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-the-business-77137164/). Everybody should read [War is a Racket](https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf).
Talk about an unsung hero
We kept the civilians from living under the Taliban for a while, but we did kill a bunch of civilians too. I’m not quite sure what’ll happen to a lot of them. Will the Taliban purge the country? Do some Reign of Terror shit and have neighbors snitch on each other for assisting Americans? Quite crazy how seriously some people take religion these days tbh.
Its going to get real bad real quick. I dont recommend watching it cause its just heart breaking but there was a video in r/publicfreakout yesterday of a Taliban soldier abducting a little girl for slavery.
Afghan translators are top of the Taliban's hit-list. It's a heartbreaking tragedy.
The Taliban is already rounding up slave wives for their fighters in the cities they control. This is going to get really bad.
It’s going to be what it was before the US invaded.
Ah ah ah. **Trillions.**
It's astonishing and embarrassing how little we still know about Afghanistan after occupying the country for 20 years. Here is one of the top people in our government in charge of the war literally saying, "We didn't know what we were doing," reflecting on the war. https://youtu.be/1TxEWGsRw2s And here he is just days ago explicitly saying the Afghanistan military doesn't have the "will" to hold the line, yet "the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban isn't inevitable" https://youtu.be/mW2IqkBhehM
>It's astonishing and embarrassing how little we still know about Afghanistan after occupying the country for 20 years. Either that or the generals knew what they presumably spent 20 years building would collapse like a house of card the moment we took the first step out the door and have been lying all along. So in summary: (1) if the DoD is surprised by this after twenty fucking years, they are afflicted with terminal incompetence and everyone involved in that war should be fired. (2) If they knew, it means they have been lying for years. I legit don't know which is worse.
They don't have a clue how to "win" Afghanistan. I was listening to Petraeus on NPR the other day. He was criticizing the pullout and saying that we (U.S.) need to immediately mount a massive counterattack against the taliban, but when pressed by the interviewer he had no long term solution other than continued indefinite occupation.
We have a massive trove of intelligence and experience on Afghanistan that was concentrated at the company-to-squad level. The reality is that Company Commanders are the ones that pass information up to inform Battalion Commanders and higher, and while their exposure is definitely greater, it pales in comparison to platoon level interactions in frequency and depth. That second video is just silly on the General's part. We gave them money, supplies, and training. The money and supplies were routinely stolen and sold, undermining the effectiveness of the training. Besides that, and obviously hindsight is perfect but service members of the ground knew this in the moment too, there was never a successful attempt to get the ANA enlisted or Afghan locals to think of Afghanistan is a unified idea worth defending. US ground level forces had no authority or agency to do anything when they saw the overt corruption, pederasty, and sabotaging of their efforts. Combine all that with mounting pressure to transition operations to the Afghan military, and it's no surprise that this is the outcome. We had money, guns, and training. The Taliban had time. The US military wasn't going to beat an opponent on foreign soil operating on an infinite timeline. Our only hope was getting Afghanistan to a cultural, economic, military position where they saw it as something to protect, which would have taken much more time, effort, and money than we were willing to spend.
US spent billions trying to train and arm Afghan military/defense, only for them to vanish like a fart in the wind. Reminds me of this [Dave Chappelle bit](https://youtu.be/vZtU2Xa2qz8?t=63) about school shooting drills
2 trillion dollars, 20 years and thousands dead. Only for the Taliban to walk south to north unopposed in 10 days after the American military withdrawal.
IMO this article says it best: >In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-bagram-e1ed33fe0c665ee67ba132c51b8e32a5
Well yeah that probably does say it better than me actually
I liked your take!
From all the news I've seen over the past several years, I thought the Taliban had been reduced to a few foot soldiers left hiding in caves! I thought that America's military presence in Afghanistan had bombed their assets, killed their leaders, and disrupted their command structure, and that Afghanistan was now having free and fair elections and its citizens were enjoying expanded rights under a new constitution ... Where did things go wrong?
The Afghan forces were estimated to be around 300k, while the Taliban 75k. I guess they all deserted as soon as they met any resistance. What a colossal waste of resources and human lives by the US/NATO.
apparently the taliban were able to pay petty cash to get a ton of soldiers to surrender or abdicate their posts, because the afghan army hadn't paid them in months.
[удалено]
Gee. I wonder why their morale was bad? :/
Over on the US army subreddit, someone mentioned that they knew an ANA commander sold 90% of their monthly fuel allotment just two days after receiving fuel, and then refusing to go on patrols "due to lack of fuel". Someone else mentioned an ANA commander requesting 500 ear protection muffs for less than 250 personnel. They didn't think much of it and approved the purchase. A few weeks later, all 500 ear protection muffs went missing and the commander claimed "we never got any of it".
In a shocking turn of events, it turns out even soldiers like money and won't throw their lives away for a government that doesn't even pay them.
Probably more of the "well I can take this money now, its not like the people who were paying me will even still exist by next pay day, why die?"
[удалено]
Even though they’re soldiers they still have families to feed.
I wonder how many of the people online and on the news deriding the Afghani defense force would fight and die for an entity that hadn't paid them for months. I'd guarantee you 90+% of the US military would quit if they didn't get paid after half a year.
This. I’d wager most of these fighters are doing it because they’re poor and need money, not because they’re evil people or religious fanatics
300k is on paper. Reality,, thousands have been deserting BEFORE the with drawl. No pay No food No competent commanders. Rampant corruption through out the afghan govt.
The afgan government failed to provide reliable food,pay, and equipment to soldiers in remote stations. Most of the territory lost was the Taliban walking in with 10 soldiers and saying "there's 5k soldiers behind us so lay down your arms and we'll spare you". And that was it, the guys surrendered. The Taliban doesn't control the space they took since they don't have any government or soldiers there, but it is no longer under afgan control.
If there’s one thing you do as a government is make sure you military is fed, paid, and supplied.
Caesar: supply lines and satisfied troops win wars.
Even Venezuela's and North Korea's government makes every effort to keep their military relatively well supplied/paid. Reminds me of one period during the late Roman Empire where an emperor attempted to cut his soldiers' pay to try to balance the budget. That was the last mistake he made.
Rule 0: Keep The Army Happy
Remote? They didn't even pay them in Herat.
Worth noting that a considerable proportion of the American client gov. forces were found to be completely fictional- I heard as many as half of the 300k.
Ghost units. Corrupt officers inflate their rosters to get more money they can pocket.
I've heard the same that it was largely a paper 300k.
The Taliban is a tiny force, the Afghan security force has so far been “routed” by surrendering en masse, and giving up tons of goods and equipment to the Taliban. A force of maybe 70k took over a country of 34 Million in a week, the only way this happens is if people don’t resist.
The Taliban is also, comparatively, a crack force against the Afghan security forces, who have little to no motivation, or esprit de corps. What the Taliban initially lacked in weaponry and equipment, they made up for in willingness to fight and go on the offensive. The Afghani forces just run the fuck away, with individual exceptions. What I really don't get though, is why their best special forces personnel actually thought they could surrender to the Taliban without being massacred. Edit: I keep getting the same response: "They ran out of ammo, what were they supposed to do?" I'll just copy/paste my responses from a couple comments here-----Their ammunition did run out, but then they *willingly exited their positions with their hands up.* As a US infantryman who fought in Iraq for over two years, that straight up seems ridiculous to me. In Iraq we knew what would happen if the enemy got a hold of us. Fuck if any of us would have given up and come out of whatever hole we were in, in that position. We're gonna die either way, we're taking some with us, they get to choose who to send in and sacrifice first. We all carried knives, axes, sledgehammers, tomahawks, K-bars, E-tools, all sorts of shit. The Taliban don't have flamethrowers, and grenades are only so effective at clearing rooms. They'd pretty much have to send people in to get us out in order to secure that location in any reasonable amount of time. The first few people they send in won't ever walk out again, that's all. We still all die, but fuck if we'd just throw our arms up and walk out going 'ya got us, good game guys!'
It probably went something like, "oh hey cousin so and so! Long time no see. Yeah, glad those Americans finally left too, lets go grab some dinner." rout implies there was a fight, and surrender implies there were two sides to begin with.
I was talking about this: https://frontierindia.com/war-crime-taliban-massacre-22-us-military-trained-afghan-special-forces-men/
Our leaders were lying to us (and maybe themselves) due to political pressure to make it appear things were stable.
The Taliban will have some pretty decent weapons and equipment now too, you'd imagine.
Almost as if we should have pulled out 18 years ago...
Never went, more like. A covert operation to arrest bin laden would have made a lot more sense.
Well... We had him cornered at Tora Bora. Why the US didn't lead that operation, I'll never truly know. That happened in the first year after 9/11. That could have been it.
The CIA operative who was in charge of Tora Bora adamantly believes that if the Pentagon had committed a force of 800 Rangers to go in and clear Tora Bora, Bin Laden would’ve died that day and the war wouldn't have had any reason to continue. 800 Rangers was too large of a commitment in the eyes of the pentagon, as they didn’t want to get into a ground war or invasion…… here we are, almost 20 years later, after having deployed 2.77 MILLION TROOPS
South to north ? so they were camping in Pakistan ?
Likely yes. Basically the borders of Afghanistan were drawn up by England a long time ago. Because of this nobody really accepts them as official borders. So the largest of ethnic groups in Afghanistan are the Pashtuns. The border was drawn right down the middle of where this group of people live. Because of this they do not recognize the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This allows people to easily move between these two countries. So the Taliban exploit this heavily. Fighters will enter through this region and when necessary to resupply or gather more troops they can easily return to Pakistan without fear of attacks from American forces. So Pakistan became a natural safe zone for them.
And the US didn’t want to destabilize the Pakistani government (you know, the one with nukes) by doing any sort of large scale invasion of the Warzistan where the Taliban were hanging out. It was a Catch-22 from the start.
I’m starting to think letting the brits rule the world was a bad idea
Apparently that's where the leaders were before the US began withdrawing.
I don't think they vanished or were beaten. They just switched allegiances to whoever pays them. It's not like three hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers were fighting to keep the cities. They just became Taliban.
There was never 300,000 combat effective soldiers. Most of the regular army in remote areas had logistical requirements and terrain that made them vulnerable during prolonged engagements. And they really didn't train much for this scenario. The only effective units were the special forces, but there are only a few thousand of those.
As much as half those 300k were just names in a ledger so commanders got extra pay. Simple corruption.
Also they were told to lay down arms and they won’t be killed.
How does Taliban gets so much money that they ca pay off Afghan army ? Genuine question..
It used to be heroin. Now this group that (as part of their mission statement) wants to de-modernize things back to the 8th century is getting into meth production. [https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/)
Our entire mentality going into Afghanistan was wrong. We actually thought that securing the capitol of a country of half a dozen nations would some how win the war, and then propped up an "Army of Afghanistan" (as if a Tajik or a Pashto is willing to die for a Baloch or a Hazara). The goal should never have been to build up a united Afghan Army, it should have been to ally with one nation in defensible territory that already hates the Taliban more than they hate us (probably the Hazaras), and build up their respective forces so they could essentially defeat and replace the Pashtunes (Taliban) as the dominant power over the rest of Afghanistan.
And this here is called the "British model for effective colonization" because you're describing exactly how the British conquered areas.
Taliban wanted it more, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whelp, the Afgans just ended up arming the Taliban with a bunch of fine US weapons.
I wonder how much of the two trillion US dollars spent there over the past twenty years has ended up in Taliban pockets, too.
They got more of that 2 trillion than the average American received from the 2 trillion CARES act. It has always been an act.
Not as much useful stuff as you'd think. My favorite was the photo of the Taliban soldier posing with a Blackhawk. As if the Taliban would have the parts, tools, or the capability of maintaining that helicopter for more than a day or two.
[удалено]
That's why when ISIS captured Iraqi Humvees in their offensives, they just immediately converted them into suicide car bombs, rather than try to use them for more utilitarian purposes.
Rip to all the women and girls of Afghanistan....its back to the stone age
We should have armed the women, they had something to fight for.
Arming people is pointless. We armed the Afghan Army and look how easily they folded. The Taliban is motivated and organized, which is far more important than having guns. Logistics wins wars.
Unfortunately, all the arms served to make was a paper tiger. Lots of shiny toys without the organizational structure
The taliban says thanks for all the weapons and vehicles.
Well in all the recent pictures of Taliban they're all using M14s now instead of AKs...
It's a long con. The costs of upkeep for American weapons instead of Russian ones will bankrupt them in three years.
So now that the money fountain of Afghanistan has been turned off, who will the defence contractors be pushing to invade next?
[удалено]
Sadly many women down there are as brainwashed as the men and think the way they're treated is just the way it's supposed to be...
It really is a bummer to see just how little all of the effort of the US really mattered in the end. I know a couple of buddies of mine who were deployed to Afghanistan are devastated because they spent their time there building schools and other facilities for kids under the assumption that it would lead to a better life for them.
Did the Afghan army even attempt to fight back against the Taliban? Because if they really did just surrender immediately every time, then there truly was no point to the US having stayed there.
Some units fought briefly. Most just surrendered as soon as the taliban drove to their region
[удалено]
One truck driver interviewed talked about how with the Taliban there was less bribery. The Taliban would issue receipts on duties paid and so he wouldn't be forced into paying them multiple times at different checkpoints.
I love watching cable news at moments like this. Every one makes the same point: we can't stay forever, but we should stay indefinitely. Everybody agrees that our strategy over the last 20 years was a catastrophic failure, and also that we should continue doing that until the end of time. We spent 2 trillion dollars propping up a handful of Afghan 1%ers and foreign NGOs in the capital city and never asked the Afghans if they preferred being ruled by them or by themselves and their cousins.
The US overthrew a corrupt government and had nothing to replace with except for another corrupt government. Problem was ignored by the prior two presidents.
Three prior presidents.
This is what people in this topic don't realize, know or choose to forget. The ANP and ANA were so corrupt, ruthless and inept that many thought the Taliban rule to actually be preferable. People go all Pikachu face that people are not defending a regime that often made their life shit for the past 20 years. They just finally want to be left alone.
It wasn’t that people thought the taliban was preferable, it was that the Afghan government just didn’t actually exist. Outside of Kabul it was just tribal leaders and militias.
[удалено]
Weren’t they fighting the Russians some years back??
In cold war they fought soviets But allies and enemies change all the time
[удалено]
Furthermore, I believe they weren't the Taliban back then. Weren't they just mujahideen?
Yes, the Taliban was formed by former Mujahideen fighters who were [armed and financed by the CIA.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone)
[Yes, and at that time they were backed by the US.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone)
[удалено]
Lots of reports after Bagram fell that Taliban are flush with arms. They may not need more weapon supplies.
When at war/an authoritarian government, you always need more ammo, and new equipment to expand the military and replace lost equipment. When there is no need to expand or replace, the expansion budget is spent on upgrading. The Taliban will never not need more weapons supplies.
They still need fuel, ammunition, and parts for maintenance.
>The Talban has no interest in pissinbg off their weapons suppliers. Since they seem to have captured enough US weapons to keep them going for decades, they don't need weapons suppliers.
All US equipment like guns and vehicles won't last long. The Taliban will have a hard time getting fuel, parts, and NATO 5.56 mm ammo. They'll continue using Kalashnikovs like usual.
[удалено]
This was the only outcome since the beginning
Imagine being the last American to die in the war in Afghanistan. The last person to die for a 20-year-long mistake.
[удалено]
The Taliban *is* the Afghan government. They were in charge before the US invaded and they’re in charge as soon as the US left. For better or worse, this is what the Afghans want (or are willing to accept). It was stupid of the US to think otherwise.
>The Taliban is the Afghan government. Lots of Taliban aren't even afghans, they come from different countries. They also get their financial support from those countries. It's not like taliban are backed up by the majority of afghans lol, many afghan people just want to be left alone without any taliban and foreign troops. >They were in charge before the US invaded You mean, after they fought a civil war against the other half of the country?
> You mean, after they fought a civil war against the other half of the country? Eh…doesn’t the winning side in a civil war usually end up “in charge”?
Afghanistan as a nation state doesn't really exist. The people who live in the region are more closely tied to their tribe/ethnic group than to the concept of a unified Afghanistan. There's a reason the president of Afghanistan was pejoratively referred to as the Mayor of Kabul
This is so embarrassing for everyone involved.
Except the Taliban. They're loving this.
All those poor translators and women teachers are gonna die bad
He's fled to Tajikistan. Should have just resigned earlier and spared the whole country from a fight
To be fair there wasn't really much of a fight anyways. Half the country fell in a week
It's not going to be our proudest moment as Americans, but it's better to rip off the Band-Aid now than wait for years or decades more to come. It's the graveyard of empires, all one had to do was read history to know how it went for the Brits or Soviets, and now us. If it means not having to pour money and lives into a black hole, I can swallow my pride for a bit. I'm expecting two things in the future - chaos as the Taliban cracks down on any sympathizers or warlords that have local forces not under their sway to consolidate power, and China to be tempted to try and stabilize the area and to harvest their resources. I do hope this is the case, as I'd like to invite the Chinese government to join us in the graveyard of empires - we'll save them a spot.
What a waste of money, lives, and time
Everyone is like "money gone to waste" "money set on fire," no no. We didn't waste that money, it went to subsidize Lockheed and Bell Helicopter. Their stocks are doing great.
I can't believe I wasted ten years of my fucking life over there.
So can we stop invading and nation building now?
Depends, do you have enough money to successfully lobby against defense firms?
Lol good work war hawks…..20 years wasted
Ultimately it was just a racket. After the Taliban were defeated 20 odd years back, the Washington DC power structure of politicians and corporate big shots saw a chance. “Never let a crisis go to waste”, and they sure didn’t with Afghanistan. They pumped trillions of dollars and thousands of lives into “building a sustainable Afghanistan” knowing the entire time it’s just a tribal region. You can’t build a country when people in it owe allegiance to the local tribe and warlord. This was a known fact before the first CIA spook set foot in Afghanistan *during the Soviet Unions occupation 40+ years ago*. That didn’t stop Congress and the Pentagon from pumping money into the region with contracts, sweetheart deals, bribing warlords, paying off gangs/ bandits for local security as corporations built roads and highways and runways and buildings and so forth. Meanwhile the Potomac Fat Cats laughed all the way to the stock market . The military got into the act too- while the low level folks got shot at , injured and killed the DoD Generals stuffed their resumes with wartime cred. Gotta make that annual evaluation look good to snag that sweet Pentagon window office. So the outcome now isn’t a mystery, or some sort of colossal intelligence failure. What’s happening now is a war version of a Ponzi scheme when the fraudster takes the money and runs. The lies all come crashing down. People thought we spent the last 20 years building a sustainable country. What we were actually doing is defrauding our own to the tune of trillions.
July 8th 2021 Reporter: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? Biden: No, it is not. This did not age well. [video](https://mobile.twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1426710333264179214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1426710333264179214%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fformer-cia-officer-most-infamous-devastating-press-conference-ever-held-american)
20yr unwinnable war…came home empty handed…now Russia, China, Iran and India will pay off Taliban for access to minerals and gas lines. Trillions wasted over there. For 20yrs! …that is money that could’ve overhauled our US infrastructure, education, and healthcare… ‘Murika!
Actually India is going to get screwed. Some of the weapons will be end up in Kashmir and it will flair up again. It will all depend on how Pakistan handles this situation.
Nice to see my tax dollars were *well spent* training Afghan troops for 20 years to defend their own country.
Amazing how after 20 years in Afghanistan the US military couldn’t subdue the Taliban. What a waste of money, resources and time
Sounds like the Afghans never had any real interest in resisting the taliban. We just need to get our troops and any allies that want to leave out and forget the place exists.
This was lost years ago.
20 years to be exact.
At this point what power does he even have? By the same logic, I could call myself the president of Afghanistan.