International Events VI: Glorious Anarchy and Chaos!

[Ran]

Just now, Relic said:

So your definition of "won" applies strictly to the initial conflict.

Yes, because that was the war we could win. Again, the enemy faded away and they offered to give us what we wanted so we would leave. They would have handed over Bin Laden, they would have decided that it wasn't worth their trouble incubating terrorist groups, and life would have returned to normal for them and for us. The Bush administration pivoted to make the victory into the start of a nation-building exercise (even while it was already taking its eye off the ball and salivating at the idea of Iraq next, mind you).

Just now, Relic said:

The "enemy" faded into the terrain as is always the case in Afghanistan,

No insurgency, Al-Qaeda out of the country, that was indeed a victory. 

Just now, Relic said:

the Taliban was not dismantled,

It could not be dismantled by the US, and attempts to treat it as if was dismantlable by the US is why the occupation was a farce. Only Afghanistan can dismantle the Taliban, because the Taliban is not merely a military or political force but a cultural one.

Just now, Relic said:

the people of Afghanistan were not better off,

Twenty years later, after all the billions poured in, the Afghanis cared so much about a better life... that they immediately surrendered without a fight. They weren't buying what the US was selling, for the most part. They never were. It was an illusion. 

What we could have done was made the Western world safer from Afghanistan-based terrorism. We succeeded almost immediately. We then proceeded to indulge in the grand delusion of nation building for nearly 20 years. 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

How can a minority group (the Taliban) utterly dominate the majority of Afghans militarily, despite the vast material superiority provided to said majority by the US over the course of decades, unless the Taliban are either not truly an Afghan minority, or else the majority is utterly spineless and uninvested in fighting for their own future.

[tzanth]

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

Twenty years later, after all the billions poured in, the Afghanis cared so much about a better life... that they immediately surrendered without a fight. They weren't buying what the US was selling, for the most part. They never were. It was an illusion. 

Several million people, mostly in Kabul but also in other major cities, were buying what the US was selling. The biggest tragedy here is for them. 

 

9 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

How can a minority group (the Taliban) utterly dominate the majority of Afghans militarily, despite the vast material superiority provided to said majority by the US over the course of decades, unless the Taliban are either not truly an Afghan minority, or else the majority is utterly spineless and uninvested in fighting for their own future.

Huge question, but my guess is that the folks who filled most of the ranks in the Afghan military (rural and suburban, less formal education, etc.) were probably not the same people who were most likely to oppose the Taliban (urban, upwardly mobile etc.). But also a total failure of leadership and corruption - why fight when the folks in charge have made it clear that their plan for the US withdrawal is to take the money and run? 

[Arakan]

28 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

How can a minority group (the Taliban) utterly dominate the majority of Afghans militarily, despite the vast material superiority provided to said majority by the US over the course of decades, unless the Taliban are either not truly an Afghan minority, or else the majority is utterly spineless and uninvested in fighting for their own future.

The Taliban have much greater support at least within the Pashtun tribes than Western MSM would led you to believe. The Afghan army and to a large extent the police forces are nothing more than a mercenary force collecting a pay check. And they did what mercenaries always have done since time immemorial: calculating the risks and benefits of engagement. Seems they decided it’s not worth it and the Taliban offered them a better deal. 

Then, we really should stop thinking of Afghans as an national entity. This does not exist. There is basically no Afghan identity, at least not in relevant numbers. It’s clan, tribe, ethnicity. In that order. 

Afghanistan consists of over a dozen ethno-linguistic groups and distinct ethnicities. Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara as main groups. When we speak of Afghans in Reality we are mostly speaking of Pashtuns. Uzbeks (Turkic) and especially Tajiks (mostly Sunni Persians/Persian-speaking) and Hazara (mostly Shia Persian/Persian-Speaking) have no real affiliation to an artificial construct called Afghanistan (which as a national entity only came into existence under the Durrani dynasty mid 18th century).

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, Arakan said:

The Taliban have much greater support at least within the Pashtun tribes than Western MSM would led you to believe. The Afghan army and to a large extent the police forces are nothing more than a mercenary force collecting a pay check. And they did what mercenaries always have done since time immemorial: calculating the risks and benefits of engagement. Seems they decided it’s not worth it and the Taliban offered them a better deal. 

Then, we really should stop thinking of Afghans as an national entity. This does not exist. There is basically no Afghan identity, at least not in relevant numbers. It’s clan, tribe, ethnicity. In that order. 
 

Afghanistan consists of over a dozen ethno-linguistic groups and distinct ethnicities. Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara as main groups. We we speak of Afghans in Reality we are mostly speaking of Pashtuns. Uzbeks (Turkic) and especially Tajiks (mostly Sunni Persians/Persian-speaking) and Hazara (mostly Shia Persian/Persian-Speaking) have no real affiliation to an artificial construct called Afghanistan (which as a national entity only came into existence under the Durrani dynasty mid 18th century).

 

 

 

 

Well there we have it then. A pointless endeavour from the start.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, tzanth said:

Several million people, mostly in Kabul but also in other major cities, were buying what the US was selling. The biggest tragedy here is for them. 

They're returning to the state that were in before we showed up, and again, did they really buy it if they didn't actually fight for it in the end? 

The only people I feel sorry for are those who collaborated with the US in good faith who have been left in the lurch and the Afghani women who don't want to live that way but have never had the power to self-determine their lives, dependant instead on male family members who did not particularly value their freedom to begin with.

[Arakan]

5 minutes ago, tzanth said:

but my guess is that the folks who filled most of the ranks in the Afghan military (rural and suburban, less formal education, etc.) were probably not the same people who were most likely to oppose the Taliban (urban, upwardly mobile etc.). But also a total failure of leadership and corruption - why fight when the folks in charge have made it clear that their plan for the US withdrawal is to take the money and run?

First point is the typical Western fallacy. We apply our understanding of socio-economic divide and make it the main focus. The national army was never more than an artificial PR product for Western media audiences. In reality it was a paycheck. True authority always lied within the clan/tribes and ethnic affiliations. The original Taliban did came from a less formal educated, rural, very conservative background. But we are not living in the 90s anymore. Things are very much in motion nowadays. The Taliban of today are globally interconnected and know what’s happening in world affairs. 

Second point is obviously true. 

[Arakan]

Another PR bullshit point which our politicians sold us: training. We spent billions upon billions on „training“. Utterly ridiculous. And the only reason why politicians could sell this PR point for so long is the general disconnection of the public with its armed forces (due to almost no general conscription anymore in Western countries). Everyone around the world who served in the armed forces knows this: roughly 3 months of basic training, 3 to 6 months of specialized training (depending on the occupation) and of course a few months of real life experience and that’s it. After a year you have good, capable soldiers who in turn will teach other soldiers, all else is a matter of motivation and dedication. No need to spend dozens of billions for „training“. 

And if you wanna have your „ordinary“ special forces (think Army Rangers), take the most capable and dedicated and train them for another year. Still no need to spend billions. 

[Arakan]

26 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well there we have it then. A pointless endeavour from the start.

Pointless to the general, working public. Unfortunately not pointless to the few who made huge profit out of all of it. 

[tzanth]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

They're returning to the state that were in before we showed up, and again, did they really buy it if they didn't actually fight for it in the end? 

The only people I feel sorry for are those who collaborated with the US in good faith who have been left in the lurch and the Afghani women who don't want to live that way but have never had the power to self-determine their lives, dependant instead on male family members who did not particularly value their freedom to begin with.

Millions were born either before or just after the Americans showed up, so are not "returning" to a state that they have known within their lives. How were they supposed to fight for something when the US and Afghan government were supposedly doing that for them? Its only been within the last couple years that the US indicated its plan to surrender/withdraw. What exactly were people supposed to do? 

[Relic]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

The only people I feel sorry for are 

Surely you don't mean that literally? 

[Gorn]

8 hours ago, Makk said:

In some ways you can say this is democracy. More than half the country wants the Taliban in charge.

I'm pretty sure at least the female half of it doesn't. Not to mention the non-Pashtun and non-Sunni parts.

[teej6]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

It could not be dismantled by the US, and attempts to treat it as if was dismantlable by the US is why the occupation was a farce. Only Afghanistan can dismantle the Taliban, because the Taliban is not merely a military or political force but a cultural one.

Fully agree. Afghanistan is a tribal society and taming it can only come from within. With the exception of Kabul and some other urban areas, the country is run by tribal leaders. Things only got worse in the 80s when the US used the jihadis (funded by the Saudis and trained by the Pakistanis) to fight the Soviets. The Pakistanis supported the Taliban as they were Pashtun and were fighting the Northern alliance.

There may have been a chance for Afghanistan if Ahmed Shah Massoud lived but he was assassinated by Al Qaeda with the help of ISI (Pakistani intelligence) two days before 9/11.

The US bet on the wrong horse in Afghanistan. If they had helped the Northern alliance and supported Massoud, before the ISI propped up the Taliban, there may have been a chance. 

[Gorn]

5 minutes ago, teej6 said:

The US bet on the wrong horse in Afghanistan. If they had helped the Northern alliance and supported Massoud, before the ISI propped up the Taliban, there may have been a chance. 

Also, if they had pressured the ISI into, you know, not supplying them, not financing them, and not providing them with a safe haven to run to where they were untouchable.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Surely you don't mean that literally? 

I mean, I feel sorry for everyone in a bad situation, but the fact is that a lot of people are just going to be in the same bad situation they always were in and had no expectations of leaving, whereas the two groups I cited had a better future in their mind and it's been taken away by the reality that it was all a pipedream.

[Arakan]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

I mean, I feel sorry for everyone in a bad situation, but the fact is that a lot of people are just going to be in the same bad situation they always were in and had no expectations of leaving, whereas the two groups I cited had a better future in their mind and it's been taken away by the reality that it was all a pipedream.

It may sound fatalistic but it’s true nonetheless. And let’s not kid ourselves. More than 70% of Afghanistan‘s population lives in rural, intrinsically conservative areas, ruled by local clan leaders and tribal leaders. This and the life of those 70% will not change in any meaningful way no matter who rules in Kabul or the cities. This is Afghanistan, this is how it is. But our ideological motivated Western MSM almost never showed us this side of the country. And many other things. At least sex slavery of minor boys was forbidden under the Taliban whereas it was widespread among the elites those last 20 years and the West turned a blind eye. There is no moral highground here. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 hours ago, Ran said:

As the director of Chatham House (the UK's Royal Institute of International Affairs) noted:

The distraction of Afghanistan off the table, manpower and resources are now free to redouble efforts to protect core interests and security committments.
 

If China genuinely thinks this shows they can beat the U.S. out of its commitment to Taiwan, they're going to reap the whirlwind.

Deterrence doesn’t work if the enemy to be deterred doesn’t believe their enemy has the will to actually fight.  

While I agree it was time to leave Afghanistan the manner of our exit has not increased our ability to deterre aggression in other locales.

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Deterrence doesn’t work if the enemy to be deterred doesn’t believe their enemy has the will to actually fight.  

The US fought for twenty years. Anyone who mistakes a twenty year finite limit as meaning that the US has no will to fight will, as I said elsewhere, reap the whirlwind. Getting tired of occupying a country that does not change because change cannot be imposed on it after a couple of decades is not the same as being unwilling to fight in defense of your strategic allies and your global interests.

Quote

While I agree it was time to leave Afghanistan the manner that we left has not increased our ability to deterre aggression in other locales.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are not going to take this as evidence of a US lack of ability to defend strategically critical areas and partners (like the South China Sea, South Korea, Japan). Afghanistan ceased to be of strategic importance when Al-Qaeda was kicked out, however, and everything that happened since was the own-goal of failed occupation, which is a distinctly different thing than waging war.

Like, does Iran know the US will not invade them any time soon because of Afghanistan? Sure. Does Iran now think it can invade Iraq because of Afghanistan? Hell no.

 

 

[TheLastWolf]

Falling off airplanes? Shooting escapees at the airport? Homo Sapiens are so doomed, what has the world come to...

[Toth]

Is it bad that I'm trying to avoid touching any of the news directly? I was out on Sunday and came back home only to be overwhelmed the news of just how much we fucked the people who worked with us over. These scenes at the Kabul airport, the many local aids fearing for their lives that were overtaken by the Taliban advance while we callously demanded they go through the bureaucratic loops to get visas now even and our own embassy workers we left trapped after months of them warning us about how bad it's going. This is devastating and it makes me so, so, so angry. The German government doesn't give a flying fuck about their allies. Last month the Green party put to a vote to fly out all registered allies and their families to give them asylum from Tabilan retaliation. Only the Left party voted with them. CDU (conservatives), SPD (social democrats) and AFD (right-wing populists) voted against it and FDP (economic liberals) abstained. They let these people die because they didn't want it to look like another refugee crisis in the middle of an election period. The nerve... for fuck's sake even my undeniably racist mother is upset about how we fucked everyone over who put their necks on the line for us and wants to take them in. And now this... I'm not opposed to pulling out of Afghanistan either and it was clear from day one that'll end in us handing the country to the Taliban on a silver platter, but the way we did it is the most cowardly, lethally incompetent way possible... I... I have no words...