War in Afghanistan, version 2021 - Or how to lose half of your country in four months

[Su-27 Flanker-B]

Starting this thread because I was unable to find any other discussing current happenings in Afghanistan.

So for anyone who doesn't know, here's tl;dr:

- Afghanistan is invaded in 2001, occupied since.
- Puppet government established, Taliban on the run and hiding.
- Hundreds of bilions of dollars are poured into training the new military and establishing a new government.
- Fast forward to 2021, Taliban are taking more and more territories.

Right now, they are erasing last pockets of resistance in Kunduz, a major northern city, long claimed "unconquerable" by some, especially by media. Taliban military seems woefully unprepared and inadequate to the threat, who was long thought erased, and seemingly resurged with big force in last year.

I am no expert, and have to wonder - how is that possible? How can twenty years of continuous support, training, preparation, and who knows what else be erased by people who spent years hiding in caves and mountains, and are able to fairly easily overrun government and its forces? Why is AAF so weak in comparison, despite being so (comparatively) well funded and equipped?

Keep in mind, I'm no expert, but I'd love to hear your opinions on that.

 

[Pyre]

The Soviets learned after ten years of failures and left. We never did. We arrogantly assumed we could force a population of heavy indoctrination and religious extremism, further galvanized by foreign invasion, to bend the knee. They will not. They simply won't bow down to foreigners who have no business in their country, who are culturally incompatible, and have done them so much harm.

The only way we ever could have won this war was to exterminate the lot of them back in 2001. No other strategy would be sufficient, aside from maybe glassing a couple cities like with Japan, I suppose.

 

[s413m-w1tch3n]

I was recently watching some documentaries about the situation in Afghanistan, why we were really there, why we're still there, why we can't pull out. The common opinion behind it seems to think that we're in the middle east due to issue with oil, or trying to civilize countries we have no business in... 9/11 Happened when the Taliban had a majority control over Afghanistan. As the Taliban began to gain power over the state, they began to establish theocracy, implementing harsh religious order over the nation... There are still areas around Afghanistan where women aren't allowed to learn to read or write. They saw the free-world as a threat to their religious organization, hence what lead to 9/11 and the bombings, and running vans through marketplaces here in America...

I actually have a friend who was an orphan whose moved around a lot. She moved here to the state eventually, but she told me about her time overthere in the middle east, I guess would be around the early 2000's and how she had to live underground for 6 months because of violent revolution.

My current understanding of the situation, is that we left afghanistan after weakening the power of the taliban for Operation Iraqi freedom (my grandfather served search in rescue for this op). By leaving afghanistan for iraq, we allowed the taliban to reclaim power, and right now the reason we're still over there, is because we're not sure if pulling out will lead to more terrorist attacks.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

The Soviets learned after ten years and of failures and left. We never did. We arrogantly assumed we could force a population of heavy indoctrination and religious extremism, further galvanized by foreign invasion, to bend the knee. They will not. They simply won't bow down to foreigners who have no business in their country, who are culturally incompatible, and have done them so much harm.

The only way we ever could have won this war was to exterminate the lot of them back in 2001. No other strategy would be sufficient, aside from maybe glassing a couple cities like with Japan, I suppose.

The problem as I see it is really a matter of how much time and effort you're willing to put in.
When Muslim armies originally conquered that part of the world they spend generations converting the people using things like the dhimmī system and just outright brutality. Now I'm not too well versed on the soviet occupation, but I know that the US seemed to think that they could apply their multi-cultural ideals there, that the people could retain their religion and culture while also adopting a western governmental systems. But that simply doesn't seem possible, you've had people living under a brutal and authoritarian system for generations so telling them they can keep their child raping tribal warlords if they adopt a western constitution and vote every four years was doomed to fail.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

To answer your questions about Afghani military incompetence with the disclaimer I'm not an active member or veteran of any armed forces: the same way the Iraqi military lost their materiel to the up-and-comer ISIS/ISIL. Neither countries have much of a real government or good regular army. Both armies rife with lazyness, corruption, general incompetence depended upon other players for offensive and defensive force instead of improving their own. While the Taliban were preparing for their eventual return the Afghani forces were busy molesting their bacha bazis.

Some geopolitical players also accept and treat the Taliban as the new rulers of Afghanistan - China and Russia are already having extensive talks with their delegations. Them supplying the Taliban with materiel as well could be another explanation for the crumpling Afghani defense.

 

[CaesarCzech]

To answer your questions about Afghani military incompetence with the disclaimer I'm not an active member or veteran of any armed forces: the same way the Iraqi military lost their materiel to the up-and-comer ISIS/ISIL. Neither countries have much of a real government or good regular army. Both armies rife with lazyness, corruption, general incompetence depended upon other players for offensive and defensive force instead of improving their own. While the Taliban were preparing for their eventual return the Afghani forces were busy molesting their bacha bazis.

Some geopolitical players also accept and treat the Taliban as the new rulers of Afghanistan - China and Russia are already having extensive talks with their delegations. Them supplying the Taliban with materiel as well could be another explanation for the crumpling Afghani defense.

Didnt Iraq only shape up somewhat when fighting against ISIS basically kill or be killed and managed to claw their way into mildly competent not collapsing under slight breeaze ?

 

[mr.moon1488]

I was there, and I honestly only kind of understand it. The ANA are basically just retards that needed the shekels. Not all, but most of them don't want to fight, or simply can't fight as a competent military force. Hell when I was there, they'd start death blossoming if a loud boom went off within audible distance of one of their patrols. Tali may have started out with some other cause, but towards the end of the war, their only real position was "we don't want Americans here." Can't really blame them, ignoring the fact that the US is an international joke these days, things in Afghanistan didn't really improve much under uncle schlomo.

 

[Balr0g]

We could also add the question how many trained Afghan soldiers turned coat and joined the Taliban (willingly or forced). And I somehow doubt that those are the original taliban. They are most likely ISI soldiers using another name. And ISIS is way more focused and trained (thanks Turkey). Though I am wondering how China and TRussia will deal with them. Feed them a bit so thesy keep away? that doesn't work with muslims imho. Though China is defintely the one country that doesn't fuck around with terrorists, Russia to a degree as well

 

[Sanshain]

The trouble is that as much as they want to deny it, the Taliban get shit done. Time and again, the USA has made the same mistake; they force 'democracy' on a people with no democratic history, and refuse to remove corrupt local officials. I'll say it plain; a total US military occupation would be better than the awful halfway-house 'cooperative government' model they keep using. Martial law, shoot confirmed criminals, zero tolerance for corruption, etc. It's what the Taliban do, and quite often, people are happy with it. I'm not trying to say the Taliban are good, but they know what their people (defined as anyone who could be a supporter) want, which is action.

 

[mr.moon1488]

Nothing really ever got done under American occupation. This was towards the end of the war, but I was on a foot patrol in Herat one time. We'd stopped because our PL wanted to "talk to someone" (lol who knows, he was a nigger). So while he was talking to whoever the fuck he was talking to, a dude came up to me. The dude was dressed nicely (black slacks, and a red polo, don't ask why I remember this), and spoke nearly perfect English, and was just kind of asking about how things were going. After talking to him a bit, I asked him about what he was doing there. Apparently, he'd been hired to check IDs at a construction site there for a skyscraper, which up to that point hadn't been worked on in years.

According to what he told me, this skyscraper had been started years before we had this conversation. The way he talked about it made it sound like it was during his High School years, though I sure as hell don't know that for fact. Anyway, the dude was happy to work there since according to him he lived just down the street and it was an easy job, but he never could understand the reasoning behind the job.

Reading between the lines of this little short story, we brought the worst things from western culture to war with us and lost.

 

[Kill a Troon for Pikamee]

Hmm, how could it be that 2000+ years of local tradition was not completely erased in favour of soulless globalism after mere 20 years of half-assed interventionism of a remote waning empire in state of advanced decomposition? Back when the USA still valued "freedom" it was able to exult some influence even far abroad because "freedom" (as in "not communism") was what many people wanted. But now that your official ideology is state-enforced gay marriage and nigger worship? Nobody wants that shit

 

[Solid Snek]

Yeah, that's the military-industrial complex for you.

It doesn't make sense because we're trying to look at the situation from the point of view of someone who who genuinely values things like "lasting peace" and "final victory". We're looking at things from the perspective of John Q Public and the media pundits paid to sell them on war, the perspective of someone who thinks - quite reasonably - that the purpose of invading a country and spending billions on occupation is to beat the other army, bring in democracy, and live happily ever after, a la Japan in the wake of WWII.

But please understand, that's NOT how war is viewed by the military-industrial complex. The purpose of war is war itself.

War is profitable. For the state, it justifies taxation and the steady growth of government power. For industry, it means billions of dollars in contracts and sales. Bombing a city is profit for Lockheed and Northrop. Rebuilding that city is profit for DynCorp. Every Afghan building bombed, and Afghan building built, and Afghan cop trained, and Afghan cop turned Taliban then shot dead in the mountains, is profit for those who control the last industry America still has. The fact that Afghanistan is in a geopolitically strategic position, and sits astride valuable mineral deposits, is a bonus, too. We don't need Afghanistan to be peaceful to take advantage of that - we simply need Afghanistan to be a place where we have an excuse to stick bases and soldiers.

Afghanistan isn't a quagmire. We aren't "losing" Afghanistan. Afghanistan is what it was always meant to be - a self-perpetuating government subsidy program.


I'd recommend reading Smedley Butler, if you haven't before. He was one of the most decorated Marines in history, and was very nearly the CMC (the highest-ranking officer in the Marine Corps), ultimately losing the job because he was considered to be too outspoken, and claimed (in the decade before WW2, when Italy was still just a trade partner of ours) that Benito Mussolinni ran over and killed a child with his car. Butler was also fiercely opposed to the MIC, blowing the whistle on the American war machine decades before Eisenhower's famous Military-Industrial Complex speech:

 

[Lone MacReady]

Always refreshing to see people fighting for their freedom against a tyrannical Bankerberg-owned dying Empire clinging to life off their stolen blood and treasure for 20 years. Win your freedom, America's economy sinks further in the fiat coffin day by day, they don't have the resources, home support or the motivated manpower to do anything about it.

 

[Drkinferno72]

Should’ve left a decade ago when we got bin laden

 

[Fuscateob]

One of my friends has a cousin who is in Afghanistan right now. He was born after the invasion started.

 

[Solid Snek]

Should’ve left a decade ago when we got bin laden

You mean when we got some other guy, claimed it was Bin Laden to give Obama a bump, then dumped the body so nobody would know, and finally killed the team that got Not-Obama in order to tie up loose ends? Or years earlier, when Bin Laden probably died, but we had to keep up appearances because "getting him" was the cornerstone of the media narrative used to justify the invasion?

One of my friends has a cousin who is in Afghanistan right now. He was born after the invasion started.

I wish we had Horrifying and Islamic ratings on this board.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

Didnt Iraq only shape up somewhat when fighting against ISIS basically kill or be killed and managed to claw their way into mildly competent not collapsing under slight breeaze ?

IIRC the Hezbollah militia saved them.

 

[Billy Beer]

The Russians couldn't do what they needed, because mass genocide would make communism look worse.

The West couldn't do what we needed to do because of the Geneva convention and rules of engagement and war. Even if the yanks ignored it most of the time.

So what do you do? You hire mercenaries, beholden to no perceptions or conventions, and use them to annihilate and or enslave the population. Use those slaves to work the mines that will extract the minerals that the west needs for its new toys.

So we would need a mercenary group who can do whatever they want, while the world just watches, has experience enslaving populations, experience in mining and manufactures a lot of products products the West.

Which country has just announced that they'll be going in to Afghanistan?

While the West won't cover it, the news will avoid it and any Interneters bringing it up will be labelled conspiracy theorists, be prepared for the silent, invisible and inhumane slaughter of millions of people.

 

[jorgoth]

yfw the taliban were the good guys the whole time

Bacha bāzī (Persian: بچه بازی‎, lit. "boy play";[1] from بچه bacheh, "boy", and بازی bazi "play, game") is a slang term in some parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan[2][3] for a custom created in Afghanistan involving child sexual abuse between older men and young adolescent males or boys, who are called dancing boys. The custom is connected to sexual slavery and child prostitution.[4] In the 21st century, Bacha bazi is reportedly practiced in various parts of Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan.[5][6][7][8][9][3] Force and coercion are common, and security officials state they are unable to end such practices because many of the men involved in bacha bazi-related activities are powerful and well-armed warlords.[10][11][12]

During the Afghan Civil War (1996–2001), bacha bazi carried the death penalty under Taliban law.[13] The practice of dancing boys is illegal under Afghan law, but the laws are seldom enforced against powerful offenders and police have reportedly been complicit in related crimes.[14][15]

A controversy arose after allegations surfaced that U.S. government forces in Afghanistan after the invasion of the country deliberately ignored bacha bazi.[16] The U.S. military responded by claiming the abuse was largely the responsibility of the "local Afghan government".[17]

As of the 2020s, despite international concern and its illegality, the practice continues.[18][19]

 

[ZeCommissar]

Because it doesn't matter if it's 20 years, 200 years, or 2000000 years, Jihad will always prevail.

Inshallah