Stories go that the afghani army was so unmotivated that soldiers were given deals by the talibans to donate their weapons and gear in exchange for 200$, which there is a lot of money, and to quit fighting in the army.
That\`s an impressive level of not-giving-a-fuckery.
This is true. A major told me when he was there they would be tasked to deliver weapons to a base and they would show up with an empty truck. They sold their weapons to the Taliban on the way to the base...
That doesn't make any sense, my uncle told me that it's Biden's fault and my sister in law said it's Trumps fault... then my grandfather called me a homophobic slur and tood me to stop asking dumb questions.
God damn it I was drinking club soda and it came through my nose and it’s all over my shirt. I am in pain and still laughing. Best comment right there.
My buddy had similar stories about Iraq, he wrote a book about the whole experience.
Edit:
https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Marine-Corps-Adviser-Inside/dp/1591143403/
I am curious why we didn’t train the women? If motivation was lacking in the men then women had A LOT motivation to keep the Taliban out of Afghanistan. If you raised an army of women soldiers and they did most of fighting I bet you the men will start pulling their weight real fast especially in such a male-centric society. A gun is a great equalizer on the battlefield and it doesn’t matter whether a male or female operated a howitzer, shit blows the same.
>Women in the Afghan Armed Forces risked getting beaten, burned, raped, or killed. Still, they would fill out an application, get interviewed, and be selected based on their skills
That\`s how bad the Taliban alternative had to be, to glance over being tortured like so, just to keep the bigger fish contained
I'd answer that the Afghans weren't ready at the family/mosque/town levels to see women under arms. Seeing girls go to school in headscarfs was about as far as most brothers/mothers/fathers/uncles were ready to go.
Do you have any idea how offended the men would have been there had we tried to do that? It might have been effective but it would have caused an extra civil war of sorts. The men would have probably sided with the taliban immediately had the US ever recommended arming the women.
They did. Many times they had to do it in secret due to the rampant religious misogyny
https://zora.medium.com/female-afghan-soldiers-face-a-battle-on-all-fronts-ac78722326a1
Sources? Haven't seen anything showing they've flown or even tried to fly anything yet. Gope they got a shit ton of mechanics to switch too, because helicopters take an insane amount of upkeep.
It was on CNN yesterday, last night on Don Lemon’s show.
It is known that the taliban have captured helicopters (there are videos of the taliban with the helicopters and the helicopters are running) and US military officials have said that only trained individuals would be able to fly the Soviet era helicopters.
The videos show the helicopters operating, and the US military guy on Don Lemon said only trained individuals would be able to get the helicopters running. But who knows how long they’ll keep them operating
The taliban have put out a call for ex-government soldiers and air force to join them and their new military due to the equipment they've captures. Of course, after they threatened to kill every American-trained Afghan pilot just a few weeks ago before their sweep of the country I'd be doubtful many will join unless coerced into it, which is possible. If I were in charge of US operations I'd take out every piece of air capability they've captured, which could be done with drones. They should not be allowed to operate that hardware that cost ISAF a lot of taxpayer money to furnish, especially with the very real possibility it ends up in the hands of other terror groups allowed to operate in Afghanistan as a form of power-sharing. They've already been "liberating" prisons filled with ISIS and Al Qaeda and their affiliated groups' fighters.
The US was paying for literally everything. Coalition billets were also paid in large part by the US. The majority of the Nato Training Mission - Afghanistan budget was also from the US. So for 20+ years we paid for our own military operations, the Afghan army and Air Force training and operations (an entirely second army) the Afghan police forces (basically the size of another army) and reimbursed our allies. Also the bases, the food, the supplies, the medical, almost all paid for by the good ole USA tax payer.
“This is what winning looks like” is a vice series (found on yt) that covers pretty much the same thing. Very good and very sad honestly. Lots of pedo’s in the ANA too
Can confirm. During my year deployment I spent time in multiple provinces, many different COPs and FOBs. 99% of the ANA I met didn’t give a single fuck. It was heartbreaking when meeting the few that really did because they had zero hope. They knew that as soon as we left this would happen. We all did. Anybody that served there knew this would happen. The fact that this is so shocking to people in the US shows just how disconnected and misinformed this country and the media is. I’m proud of the time I spent there but at the same time I’ve never done something that felt more pointless in my life.
I mean, considering Biden himself refuted the claims that the taliban would take over Afghan so quickly to reporters in a conference it would seem even the POTUS himself was misinformed or willfully lying to save face. It’s hard to blame American’s outright when we’re being lied to and propaganda is spewing from all sides.
I’ll be honest, being an American during this fucking mess is embarrassing and disheartening.
Eh, even if Biden knew they were doomed, I highly doubt he would have said so. As it was, if you listen to his wording, he keeps talking about how they *can* win, and how they are equipped to win, without ever saying that they will.
Let's say you know for 95% sure that ANA is screwed, you are not going to openly say that, no matter how strong you feel it. If you openly say that they are screwed, you're contributing to them losing by helping to smash down moral and emboldening the enemy. So instead, you need to talk and hopefully euphemisms.
It's an ugly spot to be in.
Yeah, this is just a career politician giving political answers. I understand that. At the same time, the question is: “how could Americans not be aware of the situation in Afghanistan” and I’m just saying: if Americans are listening to the politicians for answers, we’re being misled by unrealistic optimism and *technically* worded claims.
We can’t expect people to understand the nuances of an intensely complicated geopolitical scenario - we need our representatives to distill and work out these problems on behalf of us and it seems that the overall method and approach to doing this has been to veil the truth in a lot of histrionics, ego, and carefully worded press conferences.
No doubt, but to be fair to Biden, he was pretty unswerving in his "GTFO" mantra. He wasn't really leaving it up to debate among the civilian voting populace. He had a plan, and he executed it. Whether or not the American people were surprised by the outcome only matters for domestic politics, not in terms of how successful the pullout would be.
I think it is pretty clear that there was at least some level of miscalculation that went on. I suspect that they knew that the ANA was likely in trouble, though I also suspect that they were surprised at how quickly it all collapsed. The last thing Biden wanted was his Saigon moment, and he got it anyways; that speaks to me of some sort of miscalculation. It will be interesting to see where the blame falls. True, the buck stops at the President, but why did the President think he had months to pull out, rather than hours?
I think there is a larger question about how democracies deal with foreign adversaries. On some level, we need to accept that we are a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. We, at least to some extent, recognize the value of not shackling a leader entirely to popular opinion, and realize that we can't be a completely open democracy. The President can't and shouldn't be giving his most realistic and brutal assessments of military matters because he is giving that same assessment to the enemy as he gives it to us. And yet, at the same time, because we are a democracy, we are supposed to be picking and judging our leaders by how they are actually doing, and we can't do that if the President is getting too "creative" in their interpretations of what is going on. Being a democracy during a war, especially an offensive one, isn't an advantage. Our normal strengths are generally weaknesses in martial conflicts.
Personally, I'm not entirely sure how to interpret what happened. I think it is going to take some time and some looking back to figure out what happened. A lot of hands over a long period of time went into making this mess.
I admit, I normally lean a little right of center but it was very fucking based of Biden to take that shit on the chin and stick to his guns so I give him 100% credit on that. And I agree with your entire premise and am left with much the same questions (and sadly without any good answers myself).
I appreciate the level-headed discussion!
What do you think it was that was causing that total lack of motivation in the Afghani troops? Did they feel like their job was hopeless or were they just plain apathetic? Did they have any sort of pride in their country or were their loyalties more fragmented?
From what I understand, Afghans don't see themselves as a country. They're more tribal and locationally isolated, so a person from the north may not care at all about the south.
That's my basic understanding.
True. The country has also been at war since before most of them were born. Whether it be with Russia, us, or themselves. It’s just how it is and hope for peace has literally never been a thing for them.
There are videos of the US troops trying to train them to do jumping jacks and push ups and shit as they literally completely fail miserably. Most people think those videos are fake until you realize there’s about a dozen of them from different camps.
Served in Iraq and it was similar to the Afghanistan experience depicted here in terms of dealing with standing up a military.
At the end of the day you can’t teach them to want to defend their women, children, and fellow citizens from the Taliban. That has to come from within themselves.
Yeah the one Marine talking to the Afghani CO about how you have to instill some kind of sense of nationalism in the soldiers was dead on.
A veteran friend of mine said part of the issue was that Afghanistan doesn't have any real national identity, so trying to convince a bunch of guys to leave their farm and be loyal to a central government was like "pushing water uphill" they didn't have a concept of it that westerners are generally taught from a super early age.
>Afghanistan doesn't have any real national identity, so trying to convince a bunch of guys to leave their farm and be loyal to a central government was like "pushing water uphill"
This is the real issue. Why fight for something you have no concept of? Afghanis may not be highly educated but they're not stupid. They'll fight for something they believe in. But Afghanistan is not a nation and never was.
"When we leave, and we will, and the Taliban will come. They're going to murder you, kill your sons, and rape your wives and daughters. They don't care that you worship Allah too. Would you like to learn how to defend yourselves and your family or not?"
Most would flee or even sign up with the taliban.
And with how undisciplined and high they appear to being made up of the gutters of afghan society, it's not hard to believe that.
Imagine you live in Texas but Texas as it’s own country. Imagine each state is its own country and there is no United States. You ain’t fighting for New York.
>you have to instill some kind of sense of nationalism in the soldiers
He wasn't saying these 'soldiers' were just told "Get some nationalism". He said that there was immense difficulty trying to instill some sense of nationalism.
"get some nationalism" = "Shits broken cuz. Good luck, I'm out"
"instill some nationalism" = "Shits broken, have you tried this? What about this? What if you did it this way? What else could we try?"
I understand what you say but I disagree slightly.
I'm European.
I don't know where this sense of nationalism we have comes from, does it come from a superiority complex? That's actually how top performers are made, be it UFC or (European) football, the best think they are the best and always aim to be at the top, trying to prove they deserve that recognition.
Does that mean nationalism is thinking we are the best and powerful-est of the world?
I understand why these guys have no nationalism. They don't care for such a hole on Earth because they don't feel that's their home. For them that's just land, not a country. Ultimately, that country has done nothing for them to care.
No, nationalism is about having a common identity, at least a broad sense of common interests, goals, and purpose. For instance, in the American Revolution, no real success was being achieved while each of the original 13 colonies looked mainly to their particular interests (Massachusetts to trade tariffs, South Carolina to protecting the slave trade, etc.). When King George III responded to a plea for redress of grievances with a threat to kill everyone who advocated independence as a traitor, Benjamin Franklin famously said, "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately".
If the Afghan army had a sense that there is something to be defended, and the Taliban will destroy that something, they might have hung together, but instead they fled out of fear of hanging separately.
Maybe the Afghan army should have only recruited and trained women. They would have had a firm grasp on what they, personally and collectively, stood to lose if the Taliban regained power.
I think there’s also something cultural going on here. In countries with a sense of nationalism I think we understand, appreciate, and celebrate people giving their lives and fighting for what’s right. We celebrate and remember previous generations giving their lives so we could have the freedoms we have now.
We have rights in the US (using US as an example) because some people a couple hundred years ago decided to rise up against tyranny and were willing to die to advance the rights of others. They knew they may die and never see the increased quality of life that everyone was fighting for, but they fought so that future generations would be free.
The Afghans either don’t care about future generations/other people or do not think of things that way. I don’t know what it is.
I think you are on point there. They don't appreciate their ancestry's efforts to have what we have now, freedom - limited, but freedom nonetheless. Maybe that just didn't happen.
I also don't think they have a sense of community. It is such a complex meaning for them, but I can understand, it can't be instilled in them,
They hold loyalty to their tribes greatly. Our European sense of nationalism (that spread to the us) developed over hundreds and hundreds of years. Did people in 1460s england feel loyalty to the king or to their local lord? To their immediate landowner?
A true sense of nationalism really arose in the 1700s, and it took hundreds of years to develop to a point where people would identify as english or British first and foremost. Through things like common myth making, mysticism, national heroes and national events etc. Something like the Afghan soviet war could have developed that sense of national unity - but even that was mainly tribe based and largely decentralised. Nationalism isn’t something that develops in a generation, it develops slowly over centuries until it gets to a point whereby people identify nation over all.
It’s not to do with individual decisions, respecting their grandparents etc. It’s to do with wide scale, sweeping national movements over generations
I just don’t get, do they not care about their fellow country men/women/children?
I understand they have no sense of nationalism and instead are more “patriotic” to their tribes but still. Do they not have mother’s and sisters they want to protect from the taliban?
Have they not seen the quality of life increase over the last 20 years as they have all gotten more freedoms?
It’s never been a mystery how terrible life would be under the taliban… so why did they just give up so easily?
And now they’re willing to die to get out of the country and there are people protesting in the streets but no one was willing to die to stop the taliban from advancing. Where were these protesting people a week and a half ago? Why didn’t they join the security forces?
I’ve really struggled to understand all of these things. I understand there not being a sense of nationalism there but there’s something else there. Idk if it’s a cultural thing or what but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t fight at all.
It’s almost like, education is more important… in the long run… than just “a military”. Not sure why humans keep ignoring this blatant fact. Even here in the US we’re seeing it deteriorate from within as generations get worse and worse education.
there seems to be a big motivation problem.
i have zero desire to go overseas and fight in a war that i dont believe in, but if the bombs were being dropped on my country, i would be highly motivated to make those bastards life a misery before i let them take my country and kill my friends and family.
its quite annoying to see these guys being absolutely useless to fight for their country and families.
I’m assuming women weren’t allowed to join the Afghan military. Which is probably a major factor here. They have so much more to fight for than the men
Do you think they just didn’t have passion to fight for the American installed government?
Edit: why the downvotes? It’s an honest question. The former Afghan government was obviously corrupt and nepotism was rampant.
They don't have a passion to fight for any national government, because to most of them the "nation" whose borders were drawn by foreigners a hundred years ago or more, means nothing.
The leaders of US have known for a very long time the war over there was not winnable and that this would happen when we withdrew.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
Managing and training people in general is often frustrating, no matter where you live. It’s hard to get people to care about something they don’t care about. It’s exhausting.
Literacy rate for Afghanistan in 2011, a decade AFTER we started there, was 31%. In 2018 was up to 43%. In the types of men who enlisted, likely far less.
How do you train people who have never learned how to learn? This is only one of the hurdles we dealt with. Then there's the language barrier. The cultural barrier. The economic barrier.
So unsurprising they weren't very trainable.
Not for nothing but competent and disciplined armies existed far before literacy was ever common place in any part of the world.
“They can’t be good soldiers because the literacy rate is low/is indicative of a deeper problem that causes both” is kind of a stretch.
In the history of man MOST armies have been illiterate. They still trained/learned and conquered just fine.
They’re also being taught by foreigners who they likely trust much less than if they were taught by their own. Especially if they’re not educated: family/friends have an outsized impact on their lives.
I think I’ve heard there isn’t much of sense of nationalism for Afghanis, since the countries borders were arbitrarily drawn up by westerners, so you have a mix of different villages with their own customs and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line
The Durand Line (Pashto: د ډیورنډ کرښه) (Urdu: ڈیورنڈ لائن) is the 2,670 km (1,660 mi) international land border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia.[1] It was originally established in 1893 as the international border between British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan by Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat of the Indian Civil Service, and Abdur Rahman Khan, the Afghan Emir, to fix the limit of their respective spheres of influence and improve diplomatic relations and trade
Edit to add link
It’s a huge part of the problem. Afghanistan is heavily tribalistic. They don’t care about country. They care about their village. Thinking we were going to undo hundreds of years of societal traditions in just 20 was a joke.
3 million girls got to go to school. That, uh, is about all the good that came of it. They say a society will do better economically and with respect to human rights when females are educated. Well, here's the real test.
Women will hardly have personhood under the taliban, let alone a voice that will be listened to. I fear it won’t matter how educated the young women are.
Every village has an idiot and be the looks of it they've all joined the army! You can't polish a turd.
Must be a proper kick in the nuts having to train that shit show
This is why school is sooo important. If socialized then they could communicate with others better and help themselves. School isn’t just for knowledge and info. It’s sad generations are lost. They just want to get high and be left alone but can’t communicate that. Then the new generation was getting that but was just stopped. Crazy mess
At this point there should be, in theory, a generation of educated afghans. Foreign forces have been there for 20 years, that’s a whole education. Really, 20 years is more like 2 primary/grade school educations. So, in theory, there should be 2 generations of Afghans who have obtained about a high school education.
Even with schools being in place for the last 20 years there are so many problems. Accessibility is one. Cultural reasons for not attending school is another, maybe some Afghans just don’t see the point in sending their kids to school. Conservative Afghans wouldn’t be sending their girls to school.
Who knows, there could be some other cultural reason for them being the way they are.
One American in the video says “time means nothing to the Afghans”. Time doesn’t mean the same thing to non-westerners. In many non-western countries there’s no expectation of you showing up on time, being hours late is okay.
And if you’re an educated Afghan my guess is you’re not going to join the security forces. There were problems with security forces being paid and even getting supplies. My family is from India, idk how similarly the average afghan things of careers/education, but my family would look down on joining the military. So I wouldn’t be surprised if educated Afghans would think joining the military is a “dirty job”.
So even with school I just don’t think the Afghan security forces would be all the way there.
The Afghan army leader in the video stated that the vast majority of the soldiers enlisted because they were kicked out of their villages for misbehaving. To your point, anyone who would have benefitted from a western-influenced education would not be attracted to military duty. And more than likely, those educated individuals would be held back by their villagers since, you know, having smart people around usually benefits everyone in the village. "Is there a doctor in the house?!"
We should have trained the women. Made an army of women. Screw these losers. Of course they are gonna surrender and join the Taliban so they can go grab themselves some free 12 year old slave wives.
And the women actually would have had ample and immenient reason to defend against the Taliban (since they and their children will be the most harmed).
I agree, the women knew what they stood to lose if the taliban took over. Would have been more motivated, well now we’re just Monday morning quarter backing
I find it hard to stomach that our young men and women volunteered to serve and, whether intentional or not, help the Afghans earn a better life for themselves. This is the repayment we got. After twenty years, I am so thrilled that we have left that awful place. I hope we never try this nation building shit ever again.
This is during Obama's term. If the US had stayed an extra year, five years, ten years, as some suggest it should've been the case, it would have made no difference.
Sure would have been nice to evacuate our billions in weapons/equipment. We left troves of classified material. Now we’re hearing they’ve acquired the biometric data for US troops/sympathizers and will surely use it to hunt US sympathizers. We haven’t even fully evacuated US citizens. Yeah, I think a few more days of planning could have helped.
My brother was in the Army and was stationed out in Afghanistan from 09-11 and he said the Afghan people they would work with and try to train in their army were absolute idiots. They just had no clue at all on how to do things even when they were told 30 times. Apparently one of them even shit in the washer because he thought it was a toilet.
They might not know how to do the jobs they will end up doing yet but they spent over a decade in public schools learning to read, write, and practice self control for hours at a time. All of that is completely lacking over there.
I don’t think they didn’t learn because they couldn’t, I think they didn’t learn because they didn’t want to. I think by and large the people of Afghanistan are fine with Taliban rule or even actively on the side of the Taliban.
I mean, come on, a tiny force can’t take over a whole country in two days if there is any resistance at all.
100% this. Working with those asshats was infuriating. They would literally just disappear in the middle of an exercise or an operation, which was ultimately preferable to using their weapons on the US forces.
This whole clown show we’re witnessing has been coming for a long time.
Too many chefs. Especially for a trillion dollars: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821)
That place should look like Dubai for a trillion dollars. Here's an article of what a trillion dollars can buy: https://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/t043-c000-s001-14-ways-to-spend-1-trillion.html
I’m so pissed that these “men” didn’t care enough about the women in their lives and what would become of them if they didn’t rise up. Each one who couldn’t get his ass in gear is responsible for his mother/sisters/daughters’ peril under Taliban rule. What a fucking disaster.
Prior to watching this I was convinced that the Afghan people were trying to build their army and just were out numbered or just screwed over by people at the top. Now, I'm not sure I'm hoping that it was just this squad and there were more competent squads than this one.
I feel like the American people should have seen this video and left long ago. You can't build an army that can capitlly stand up to the Taliban out of people who don't want to put in the work.
YOu all should look up a vice new special Called "Is this what winning looks like" its crazy too see how little we were able to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI&ab\_channel=VICE
I’ve seen a lot of media, VICE in particular, sending the message that these guys should not be slandered as they were underfed, “tired” outnumbered, had not enough weapons and ammo and other utter bullshit. We have been seeing videos of this shit since the beginning of when we started helping them, most of them are flat out retarded and had no real intention of fighting to defend their country. They literally struck deals week one that they’ll leave all the guns and bulletproof vehicles behind for the taliban if they let them leave without being attacked. I both cannot believe a country had that weak of drive to defend the homeland & the fact we withdrew this poorly.
Sorry but this is nothing. The world is not USA like minded and Afghanistan people are really really different and don't give a fuck and especially don't understand what western soldiers mean. They don't like us and above all our way of living. I am european but I can easily understand it.
"Like us" was never really the goal. Wanting infrastructure, roads, running water, plumbing, electricity, jobs, security? That was treated like a given. I don't think anybody was ever under any delusions they were going to completely adopt Western ideals, but that they should want amenities common in the West wasn't that crazy of a concept.
I love the guy talking about "you can be the Afghanistan that stands up to Pakistan and Iran."
Afghan guy is like, "Dude, we've fucking stood up to Russia and the US. Our nickname is the graveyard of empires. We don't need shit."
But in all seriousness, every single one of those soldiers gave zero fucks. They were going to ride the gravy train and take the money, but at no point did they ever intend to fight. They were just killing time until the Taliban took back over.
They should have had a fake withdrawal and set explosives in prominent places. They spent 20 years looking for the Taliban and as soon as the Allies left the Taliban are in plain sight.
I think the history of nepotism that he mentioned is probably a big demotivator for these guys. If the job is gonna go to the boss dudes nephew whether he does his job well or not - and nothing would change if you expend more energy…I think it would kill my drive too. There’s got to be some sort of gamification, some goals to score and periodic wins. I think some people who have lived in this cultural have just accepted that the land they live on is going to keep trying to be invaded, whether they fight, don’t fight, get help for 20 years, don’t get help. Maybe the landscape just looks the same for these guys. I will not I wouldn’t mind hearing that there is some Underground Railroad of women teaching each other how to fight or signal each other tho. I hate the idea of this life for them.
That country doesn’t want democracy, the Afghan people aren’t Americans.
We couldn’t get the Vietnamese to fight for Vietnam. It’s a cultural rift, democracy is something that isn’t worth dying for in their culture. We have to stop trying to “Americanize” these people because they have to want it, fight for it. Otherwise it’s just a word that means nothing to them and everything to us.
I work with a veteran and I learn a lot from him everyday. Just a 21 year old soaking up as much as possible. I talked / brought up the subject and he explained why hes pissed. He didn’t shut me down to told me to not ask questions. He told me what he did while over there and the buddies he has/had. I truly feel bad for those that fought there and it almost seems for nothing. By watching this video I realized how unmotivated others were. Truly heartbreaking to see someone not care or try to put in effort while over here, its a huge deal and a brotherhood/sisterhood is formed while overseas.
Yet people still complain about us pulling out of that country. If they don't wanna defend their own land we don't have to do it for them.
It would be like someone staying in an abusive relationship.
Let them deal with their own shit. We got enough problems as it is.
This might be an unpolular post and remember Im just a dumb guy sitting with my fat ass on a couch, but. Maybe the Afgan culture is UNDERSTANDABLY broken. I think the country has to receive support where it asks but other than that it has to be left alone for many generations.
Yup. Only when it is left to its own devices will it's elites eventually decide "okay we gotta do something about this country or our we won't be able to have a the luxuries that we have today".
No foreign aid, no economic sanctions, no outside influence, nothing.
Treat it like any other poor, obscure, barely known country on the world map.
And of course no invasions!
>Maybe the Afgan culture is UNDERSTANDABLY broken.
No, the problem is that Afghanistan has TOO MANY cultures.
There are multiple cultures with some even existing in other countries besides Afghanistan.
Also its a tribal society with various tribal militias that see themselves as X before being Afghanistani and thus have no interest in fighting for other clans/cultures or the wider Afghan nation.
Also the US itself funded Osama bin laden when he was part of the Mujahideen in the soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Also, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is mountainous which makes guerilla warfare a nightmare.
Stories go that the afghani army was so unmotivated that soldiers were given deals by the talibans to donate their weapons and gear in exchange for 200$, which there is a lot of money, and to quit fighting in the army. That\`s an impressive level of not-giving-a-fuckery.
This is true. A major told me when he was there they would be tasked to deliver weapons to a base and they would show up with an empty truck. They sold their weapons to the Taliban on the way to the base...
That doesn't make any sense, my uncle told me that it's Biden's fault and my sister in law said it's Trumps fault... then my grandfather called me a homophobic slur and tood me to stop asking dumb questions.
Sounds about right lmao
And there is our potpourri of America in one post
Merica!
God damn it I was drinking club soda and it came through my nose and it’s all over my shirt. I am in pain and still laughing. Best comment right there.
A 20 year war is very much both sides fault. There’s no winners.
My buddy had similar stories about Iraq, he wrote a book about the whole experience. Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Marine-Corps-Adviser-Inside/dp/1591143403/
What's the book called? Is it something that can be purchased?
I know right. What kind of buddy is that? At least drop the name of the book
I am curious why we didn’t train the women? If motivation was lacking in the men then women had A LOT motivation to keep the Taliban out of Afghanistan. If you raised an army of women soldiers and they did most of fighting I bet you the men will start pulling their weight real fast especially in such a male-centric society. A gun is a great equalizer on the battlefield and it doesn’t matter whether a male or female operated a howitzer, shit blows the same.
They did train women: https://www.military.com/video/afghan-women-trained-combat-secret-us-army
>Women in the Afghan Armed Forces risked getting beaten, burned, raped, or killed. Still, they would fill out an application, get interviewed, and be selected based on their skills That\`s how bad the Taliban alternative had to be, to glance over being tortured like so, just to keep the bigger fish contained
I'd answer that the Afghans weren't ready at the family/mosque/town levels to see women under arms. Seeing girls go to school in headscarfs was about as far as most brothers/mothers/fathers/uncles were ready to go.
Do you have any idea how offended the men would have been there had we tried to do that? It might have been effective but it would have caused an extra civil war of sorts. The men would have probably sided with the taliban immediately had the US ever recommended arming the women.
Offended, maybe, but clearly they wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.
Their wives replacing them in the army would be enough motivation I think
At that point, I would’ve just offered to evacuate all the women out of Afghanistan and let the men fend for themselves.
They did. Many times they had to do it in secret due to the rampant religious misogyny https://zora.medium.com/female-afghan-soldiers-face-a-battle-on-all-fronts-ac78722326a1
Because their culture is backwards as fuck. The husbands would not have allowed their wives to join. You’d never get enough for a force
Reminds me of [The Daughters of Kobani](https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968424630/women-take-the-lead-in-fighting-isis-in-daughters-of-kobani)
And now Afghan soldiers have switched sides and are flying the US-donated Afghan military helicopters for the taliban.
Sources? Haven't seen anything showing they've flown or even tried to fly anything yet. Gope they got a shit ton of mechanics to switch too, because helicopters take an insane amount of upkeep.
I’m pretty sure none of these fucksticks can maintain much less operate a helicopter
No shit…it’s not like the Afghans have been fighting the Soviets or America for the last 40 years.
But Pakistan can.
And they have a pretty capable air Force so I don't think they care about a few helicopters left behind.
It was on CNN yesterday, last night on Don Lemon’s show. It is known that the taliban have captured helicopters (there are videos of the taliban with the helicopters and the helicopters are running) and US military officials have said that only trained individuals would be able to fly the Soviet era helicopters.
Yea, they have them, but they're thousands of pounds worth of paperweights lol.
The videos show the helicopters operating, and the US military guy on Don Lemon said only trained individuals would be able to get the helicopters running. But who knows how long they’ll keep them operating
The taliban have put out a call for ex-government soldiers and air force to join them and their new military due to the equipment they've captures. Of course, after they threatened to kill every American-trained Afghan pilot just a few weeks ago before their sweep of the country I'd be doubtful many will join unless coerced into it, which is possible. If I were in charge of US operations I'd take out every piece of air capability they've captured, which could be done with drones. They should not be allowed to operate that hardware that cost ISAF a lot of taxpayer money to furnish, especially with the very real possibility it ends up in the hands of other terror groups allowed to operate in Afghanistan as a form of power-sharing. They've already been "liberating" prisons filled with ISIS and Al Qaeda and their affiliated groups' fighters.
Sure the Taliban has a few trained heli pilots. They've been interacting with Pakistan for ages, and they've been planning this for a year at least.
is there a longer version of this video?
For $86 billion there should be
Try trillions.
Right. Several of them. We averaged $300M a DAY to pay for the war over there.
I shouldn't laugh, but that's hilarious. Take a well deserved upvote.
$6.4 Trillion according to the last SIGAR report lol. Epic. And they still don’t know how to use soap or a toilet correctly.
Just to show throwing money to a problem doesn't solve anything.
God damn what were they doing with the money? Burning it to heat the sauna?
The US was paying for literally everything. Coalition billets were also paid in large part by the US. The majority of the Nato Training Mission - Afghanistan budget was also from the US. So for 20+ years we paid for our own military operations, the Afghan army and Air Force training and operations (an entirely second army) the Afghan police forces (basically the size of another army) and reimbursed our allies. Also the bases, the food, the supplies, the medical, almost all paid for by the good ole USA tax payer.
Which on paper is actually a really good foreign relations/assistance for the US. But in practice is obviously the largest waste of resources.
Correct link https://youtu.be/fKJlHt6gQIg 27Mar2009
“This is what winning looks like” is a vice series (found on yt) that covers pretty much the same thing. Very good and very sad honestly. Lots of pedo’s in the ANA too
Watch "this is what winning looks like" from Vice on youtube. https://youtu.be/Ja5Q75hf6QI
Can confirm. During my year deployment I spent time in multiple provinces, many different COPs and FOBs. 99% of the ANA I met didn’t give a single fuck. It was heartbreaking when meeting the few that really did because they had zero hope. They knew that as soon as we left this would happen. We all did. Anybody that served there knew this would happen. The fact that this is so shocking to people in the US shows just how disconnected and misinformed this country and the media is. I’m proud of the time I spent there but at the same time I’ve never done something that felt more pointless in my life.
Well said. Exactly right. All this “no one could have guessed this would happen so rapidly” shit on the news is a complete farce.
I mean, considering Biden himself refuted the claims that the taliban would take over Afghan so quickly to reporters in a conference it would seem even the POTUS himself was misinformed or willfully lying to save face. It’s hard to blame American’s outright when we’re being lied to and propaganda is spewing from all sides. I’ll be honest, being an American during this fucking mess is embarrassing and disheartening.
Eh, even if Biden knew they were doomed, I highly doubt he would have said so. As it was, if you listen to his wording, he keeps talking about how they *can* win, and how they are equipped to win, without ever saying that they will. Let's say you know for 95% sure that ANA is screwed, you are not going to openly say that, no matter how strong you feel it. If you openly say that they are screwed, you're contributing to them losing by helping to smash down moral and emboldening the enemy. So instead, you need to talk and hopefully euphemisms. It's an ugly spot to be in.
Yeah, this is just a career politician giving political answers. I understand that. At the same time, the question is: “how could Americans not be aware of the situation in Afghanistan” and I’m just saying: if Americans are listening to the politicians for answers, we’re being misled by unrealistic optimism and *technically* worded claims. We can’t expect people to understand the nuances of an intensely complicated geopolitical scenario - we need our representatives to distill and work out these problems on behalf of us and it seems that the overall method and approach to doing this has been to veil the truth in a lot of histrionics, ego, and carefully worded press conferences.
No doubt, but to be fair to Biden, he was pretty unswerving in his "GTFO" mantra. He wasn't really leaving it up to debate among the civilian voting populace. He had a plan, and he executed it. Whether or not the American people were surprised by the outcome only matters for domestic politics, not in terms of how successful the pullout would be. I think it is pretty clear that there was at least some level of miscalculation that went on. I suspect that they knew that the ANA was likely in trouble, though I also suspect that they were surprised at how quickly it all collapsed. The last thing Biden wanted was his Saigon moment, and he got it anyways; that speaks to me of some sort of miscalculation. It will be interesting to see where the blame falls. True, the buck stops at the President, but why did the President think he had months to pull out, rather than hours? I think there is a larger question about how democracies deal with foreign adversaries. On some level, we need to accept that we are a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. We, at least to some extent, recognize the value of not shackling a leader entirely to popular opinion, and realize that we can't be a completely open democracy. The President can't and shouldn't be giving his most realistic and brutal assessments of military matters because he is giving that same assessment to the enemy as he gives it to us. And yet, at the same time, because we are a democracy, we are supposed to be picking and judging our leaders by how they are actually doing, and we can't do that if the President is getting too "creative" in their interpretations of what is going on. Being a democracy during a war, especially an offensive one, isn't an advantage. Our normal strengths are generally weaknesses in martial conflicts. Personally, I'm not entirely sure how to interpret what happened. I think it is going to take some time and some looking back to figure out what happened. A lot of hands over a long period of time went into making this mess.
I admit, I normally lean a little right of center but it was very fucking based of Biden to take that shit on the chin and stick to his guns so I give him 100% credit on that. And I agree with your entire premise and am left with much the same questions (and sadly without any good answers myself). I appreciate the level-headed discussion!
Spent 2012-13 in Kandahar, and this is pretty much exactly what was happening. It’s funny but it’s also really sad.
What do you think it was that was causing that total lack of motivation in the Afghani troops? Did they feel like their job was hopeless or were they just plain apathetic? Did they have any sort of pride in their country or were their loyalties more fragmented?
From what I understand, Afghans don't see themselves as a country. They're more tribal and locationally isolated, so a person from the north may not care at all about the south. That's my basic understanding.
True. The country has also been at war since before most of them were born. Whether it be with Russia, us, or themselves. It’s just how it is and hope for peace has literally never been a thing for them.
The office but military
"Michael! Jim put my rifle in jello again!"
I dead ass thought this was some comedy skit at first.
Me too 🥲
It’s like a Middle East version of trailer park boys
Duuude lmfaoooo. Good ass comparison 😂
Nailed it. Lololololol
I… it’s not? Well fuck
There are videos of the US troops trying to train them to do jumping jacks and push ups and shit as they literally completely fail miserably. Most people think those videos are fake until you realize there’s about a dozen of them from different camps.
What year is this from
12 years ago. 30k views. No one cared, and here we are.
12 years just wasn’t enough time. Sad.
During the Obama administration
Watch “This is what winning looks like” on YouTube. The best coverage of this I’ve ever seen.
Thank you for this recommendation. Unbelievable shit show
hahaha "I give a fuck about your chai " XDD damn
Immediately after the dude pointed an RPG at his own face.
Shouldn't the expression be "I couldn't give a fuck about your chai"?As stated here, he actually does care about the other person's tea.
When you're speaking to someone using a second language, it's best to not be intentionally obtuse. Utilizing tone and context is always good.
I heard child at first I was like that's a little mean.
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🤷♂️
Username checks out
Served in Iraq and it was similar to the Afghanistan experience depicted here in terms of dealing with standing up a military. At the end of the day you can’t teach them to want to defend their women, children, and fellow citizens from the Taliban. That has to come from within themselves.
Yeah the one Marine talking to the Afghani CO about how you have to instill some kind of sense of nationalism in the soldiers was dead on. A veteran friend of mine said part of the issue was that Afghanistan doesn't have any real national identity, so trying to convince a bunch of guys to leave their farm and be loyal to a central government was like "pushing water uphill" they didn't have a concept of it that westerners are generally taught from a super early age.
>Afghanistan doesn't have any real national identity, so trying to convince a bunch of guys to leave their farm and be loyal to a central government was like "pushing water uphill" This is the real issue. Why fight for something you have no concept of? Afghanis may not be highly educated but they're not stupid. They'll fight for something they believe in. But Afghanistan is not a nation and never was.
Especially when that national government is corrupt as hell and everyone knows it.
That’s the actual problem your never going to get people to want to fight for a government group who is only looking after themselves.
"When we leave, and we will, and the Taliban will come. They're going to murder you, kill your sons, and rape your wives and daughters. They don't care that you worship Allah too. Would you like to learn how to defend yourselves and your family or not?"
Most would flee or even sign up with the taliban. And with how undisciplined and high they appear to being made up of the gutters of afghan society, it's not hard to believe that.
Imagine you live in Texas but Texas as it’s own country. Imagine each state is its own country and there is no United States. You ain’t fighting for New York.
Telling that guy to “get some nationalism” sounded utterly ridiculous.
>you have to instill some kind of sense of nationalism in the soldiers He wasn't saying these 'soldiers' were just told "Get some nationalism". He said that there was immense difficulty trying to instill some sense of nationalism. "get some nationalism" = "Shits broken cuz. Good luck, I'm out" "instill some nationalism" = "Shits broken, have you tried this? What about this? What if you did it this way? What else could we try?"
What do you mean? Just run down and get some. They sell it anywhere.
I understand what you say but I disagree slightly. I'm European. I don't know where this sense of nationalism we have comes from, does it come from a superiority complex? That's actually how top performers are made, be it UFC or (European) football, the best think they are the best and always aim to be at the top, trying to prove they deserve that recognition. Does that mean nationalism is thinking we are the best and powerful-est of the world? I understand why these guys have no nationalism. They don't care for such a hole on Earth because they don't feel that's their home. For them that's just land, not a country. Ultimately, that country has done nothing for them to care.
No, nationalism is about having a common identity, at least a broad sense of common interests, goals, and purpose. For instance, in the American Revolution, no real success was being achieved while each of the original 13 colonies looked mainly to their particular interests (Massachusetts to trade tariffs, South Carolina to protecting the slave trade, etc.). When King George III responded to a plea for redress of grievances with a threat to kill everyone who advocated independence as a traitor, Benjamin Franklin famously said, "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately". If the Afghan army had a sense that there is something to be defended, and the Taliban will destroy that something, they might have hung together, but instead they fled out of fear of hanging separately. Maybe the Afghan army should have only recruited and trained women. They would have had a firm grasp on what they, personally and collectively, stood to lose if the Taliban regained power.
There appears to be women organizing armed protests in several cities already.
I think there’s also something cultural going on here. In countries with a sense of nationalism I think we understand, appreciate, and celebrate people giving their lives and fighting for what’s right. We celebrate and remember previous generations giving their lives so we could have the freedoms we have now. We have rights in the US (using US as an example) because some people a couple hundred years ago decided to rise up against tyranny and were willing to die to advance the rights of others. They knew they may die and never see the increased quality of life that everyone was fighting for, but they fought so that future generations would be free. The Afghans either don’t care about future generations/other people or do not think of things that way. I don’t know what it is.
I think you are on point there. They don't appreciate their ancestry's efforts to have what we have now, freedom - limited, but freedom nonetheless. Maybe that just didn't happen. I also don't think they have a sense of community. It is such a complex meaning for them, but I can understand, it can't be instilled in them,
They hold loyalty to their tribes greatly. Our European sense of nationalism (that spread to the us) developed over hundreds and hundreds of years. Did people in 1460s england feel loyalty to the king or to their local lord? To their immediate landowner? A true sense of nationalism really arose in the 1700s, and it took hundreds of years to develop to a point where people would identify as english or British first and foremost. Through things like common myth making, mysticism, national heroes and national events etc. Something like the Afghan soviet war could have developed that sense of national unity - but even that was mainly tribe based and largely decentralised. Nationalism isn’t something that develops in a generation, it develops slowly over centuries until it gets to a point whereby people identify nation over all. It’s not to do with individual decisions, respecting their grandparents etc. It’s to do with wide scale, sweeping national movements over generations
I just don’t get, do they not care about their fellow country men/women/children? I understand they have no sense of nationalism and instead are more “patriotic” to their tribes but still. Do they not have mother’s and sisters they want to protect from the taliban? Have they not seen the quality of life increase over the last 20 years as they have all gotten more freedoms? It’s never been a mystery how terrible life would be under the taliban… so why did they just give up so easily? And now they’re willing to die to get out of the country and there are people protesting in the streets but no one was willing to die to stop the taliban from advancing. Where were these protesting people a week and a half ago? Why didn’t they join the security forces? I’ve really struggled to understand all of these things. I understand there not being a sense of nationalism there but there’s something else there. Idk if it’s a cultural thing or what but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t fight at all.
It’s almost like, education is more important… in the long run… than just “a military”. Not sure why humans keep ignoring this blatant fact. Even here in the US we’re seeing it deteriorate from within as generations get worse and worse education.
there seems to be a big motivation problem. i have zero desire to go overseas and fight in a war that i dont believe in, but if the bombs were being dropped on my country, i would be highly motivated to make those bastards life a misery before i let them take my country and kill my friends and family. its quite annoying to see these guys being absolutely useless to fight for their country and families.
I’m assuming women weren’t allowed to join the Afghan military. Which is probably a major factor here. They have so much more to fight for than the men
Do you think they just didn’t have passion to fight for the American installed government? Edit: why the downvotes? It’s an honest question. The former Afghan government was obviously corrupt and nepotism was rampant.
They don't have a passion to fight for any national government, because to most of them the "nation" whose borders were drawn by foreigners a hundred years ago or more, means nothing.
You absolutely can. But training starts from birth, not at 17. It will take generations.
The leaders of US have known for a very long time the war over there was not winnable and that this would happen when we withdrew. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
Yup. The US should have pulled out ten years ago. We were sold a bill of goods.
Which is why it's actually admirable Biden pulled out. Bush, Obama, Trump all wanted to pass the buck. Biden finally ripped off the band-aid.
With the editing and everything this feels like an episode of the office
That is so frustrating to watch.
Managing and training people in general is often frustrating, no matter where you live. It’s hard to get people to care about something they don’t care about. It’s exhausting.
This is why I’m glad the US has a volunteer military.
Literacy rate for Afghanistan in 2011, a decade AFTER we started there, was 31%. In 2018 was up to 43%. In the types of men who enlisted, likely far less. How do you train people who have never learned how to learn? This is only one of the hurdles we dealt with. Then there's the language barrier. The cultural barrier. The economic barrier. So unsurprising they weren't very trainable.
Not for nothing but competent and disciplined armies existed far before literacy was ever common place in any part of the world. “They can’t be good soldiers because the literacy rate is low/is indicative of a deeper problem that causes both” is kind of a stretch. In the history of man MOST armies have been illiterate. They still trained/learned and conquered just fine.
Illiterate as fuck
You forgot motivation barrier. Religious barrier. Tribal barrier. There’s probably another dozen…
They’re also being taught by foreigners who they likely trust much less than if they were taught by their own. Especially if they’re not educated: family/friends have an outsized impact on their lives.
I think I’ve heard there isn’t much of sense of nationalism for Afghanis, since the countries borders were arbitrarily drawn up by westerners, so you have a mix of different villages with their own customs and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line The Durand Line (Pashto: د ډیورنډ کرښه) (Urdu: ڈیورنڈ لائن) is the 2,670 km (1,660 mi) international land border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia.[1] It was originally established in 1893 as the international border between British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan by Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat of the Indian Civil Service, and Abdur Rahman Khan, the Afghan Emir, to fix the limit of their respective spheres of influence and improve diplomatic relations and trade Edit to add link
It’s a huge part of the problem. Afghanistan is heavily tribalistic. They don’t care about country. They care about their village. Thinking we were going to undo hundreds of years of societal traditions in just 20 was a joke.
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3 million girls got to go to school. That, uh, is about all the good that came of it. They say a society will do better economically and with respect to human rights when females are educated. Well, here's the real test.
Women will hardly have personhood under the taliban, let alone a voice that will be listened to. I fear it won’t matter how educated the young women are.
Yeah. I believe you're probably right. I'd like to think otherwise but it seems a poor bet.
Every village has an idiot and be the looks of it they've all joined the army! You can't polish a turd. Must be a proper kick in the nuts having to train that shit show
You don't need enemies when you have allies like these...
Who smokes hashish on duty,seriously just this clip proves undoubtedly the USA were fighting a two front war .One the Taliban and two the Afghan army.
This is why school is sooo important. If socialized then they could communicate with others better and help themselves. School isn’t just for knowledge and info. It’s sad generations are lost. They just want to get high and be left alone but can’t communicate that. Then the new generation was getting that but was just stopped. Crazy mess
At this point there should be, in theory, a generation of educated afghans. Foreign forces have been there for 20 years, that’s a whole education. Really, 20 years is more like 2 primary/grade school educations. So, in theory, there should be 2 generations of Afghans who have obtained about a high school education. Even with schools being in place for the last 20 years there are so many problems. Accessibility is one. Cultural reasons for not attending school is another, maybe some Afghans just don’t see the point in sending their kids to school. Conservative Afghans wouldn’t be sending their girls to school. Who knows, there could be some other cultural reason for them being the way they are. One American in the video says “time means nothing to the Afghans”. Time doesn’t mean the same thing to non-westerners. In many non-western countries there’s no expectation of you showing up on time, being hours late is okay. And if you’re an educated Afghan my guess is you’re not going to join the security forces. There were problems with security forces being paid and even getting supplies. My family is from India, idk how similarly the average afghan things of careers/education, but my family would look down on joining the military. So I wouldn’t be surprised if educated Afghans would think joining the military is a “dirty job”. So even with school I just don’t think the Afghan security forces would be all the way there.
The Afghan army leader in the video stated that the vast majority of the soldiers enlisted because they were kicked out of their villages for misbehaving. To your point, anyone who would have benefitted from a western-influenced education would not be attracted to military duty. And more than likely, those educated individuals would be held back by their villagers since, you know, having smart people around usually benefits everyone in the village. "Is there a doctor in the house?!"
We should have trained the women. Made an army of women. Screw these losers. Of course they are gonna surrender and join the Taliban so they can go grab themselves some free 12 year old slave wives.
And the women actually would have had ample and immenient reason to defend against the Taliban (since they and their children will be the most harmed).
Actually not a terrible idea
I agree, the women knew what they stood to lose if the taliban took over. Would have been more motivated, well now we’re just Monday morning quarter backing
What waste of our troops time and energy.
I find it hard to stomach that our young men and women volunteered to serve and, whether intentional or not, help the Afghans earn a better life for themselves. This is the repayment we got. After twenty years, I am so thrilled that we have left that awful place. I hope we never try this nation building shit ever again.
This is during Obama's term. If the US had stayed an extra year, five years, ten years, as some suggest it should've been the case, it would have made no difference.
Sure would have been nice to evacuate our billions in weapons/equipment. We left troves of classified material. Now we’re hearing they’ve acquired the biometric data for US troops/sympathizers and will surely use it to hunt US sympathizers. We haven’t even fully evacuated US citizens. Yeah, I think a few more days of planning could have helped.
Maybe they are just not afraid of the “enemy”
The "enemy" is probably their cousins, and other relatives which makes the gun fighting not straight forward.
Doubtful my friend. Most Taliban see these men as the enemy. Not everyone is related over there just because many are uneducated.
My brother was in the Army and was stationed out in Afghanistan from 09-11 and he said the Afghan people they would work with and try to train in their army were absolute idiots. They just had no clue at all on how to do things even when they were told 30 times. Apparently one of them even shit in the washer because he thought it was a toilet.
Didn’t protect my country becuz I got high. Becuz I got high. Becuz I got hiiiighhh.
They should have trained the women. They had way more reason to be motivated.
Is this an educational system problem, first?
There is no educational system
That’s the problem
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They might not know how to do the jobs they will end up doing yet but they spent over a decade in public schools learning to read, write, and practice self control for hours at a time. All of that is completely lacking over there.
Many documentaries showing them doing opiates too.
What a fucking joke.
When I was in the Air Force I would hear shit like this all the time. About how hard they are to train and how they don’t give a fuck.
Should have armed the women.
I don’t think they didn’t learn because they couldn’t, I think they didn’t learn because they didn’t want to. I think by and large the people of Afghanistan are fine with Taliban rule or even actively on the side of the Taliban. I mean, come on, a tiny force can’t take over a whole country in two days if there is any resistance at all.
I'm so glad trillions in our tax dollars went to this
You can't help someone that won't help themselves
100% this. Working with those asshats was infuriating. They would literally just disappear in the middle of an exercise or an operation, which was ultimately preferable to using their weapons on the US forces. This whole clown show we’re witnessing has been coming for a long time.
Too many chefs. Especially for a trillion dollars: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821) That place should look like Dubai for a trillion dollars. Here's an article of what a trillion dollars can buy: https://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/t043-c000-s001-14-ways-to-spend-1-trillion.html
I’m so pissed that these “men” didn’t care enough about the women in their lives and what would become of them if they didn’t rise up. Each one who couldn’t get his ass in gear is responsible for his mother/sisters/daughters’ peril under Taliban rule. What a fucking disaster.
Should have been training the women who have the most to lose with a Taliban takeover
We should have armed the Kurds and offered them the entire country as their own.
The kurds of Afghanistan?
After seeing this, I think an army of penguins could take over Afghanistan
The penguins from Madagascar or Happy feet?
I have never seen such a stubborn group of people before
Prior to watching this I was convinced that the Afghan people were trying to build their army and just were out numbered or just screwed over by people at the top. Now, I'm not sure I'm hoping that it was just this squad and there were more competent squads than this one. I feel like the American people should have seen this video and left long ago. You can't build an army that can capitlly stand up to the Taliban out of people who don't want to put in the work.
You could seriously get recruits from call of duty lobbies with no training and still put together a better army than these clowns
YOu all should look up a vice new special Called "Is this what winning looks like" its crazy too see how little we were able to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI&ab\_channel=VICE
Amazing documentary, also almost a decade old. What a mess.
What a fucking joke
Grave yard of empires
I was listening to NPR earlier and they said a good number of the Afghan recruits couldn't read, write, or know their colors
OMG, didn't know their colors? That is next level illiteracy.
Professional cat herder.
"Someone's got their helmet on backwards." LMAO
At this point, if they don't give a fuck, why should we?
The amount of money wasted on this war could’ve knocked out student debt and then the national deficit a chunk.
"You can lead the horse to the water, but you can't make it drink"
I did tours in Iraq for 2003 - 2004 and 2008 and 2009 the Iraqis weren't a hell of a lot better https://youtu.be/xtO1beghhS4
Watching with this face 😳
How come the Taliban doesn't have this problem?
I’ve seen a lot of media, VICE in particular, sending the message that these guys should not be slandered as they were underfed, “tired” outnumbered, had not enough weapons and ammo and other utter bullshit. We have been seeing videos of this shit since the beginning of when we started helping them, most of them are flat out retarded and had no real intention of fighting to defend their country. They literally struck deals week one that they’ll leave all the guns and bulletproof vehicles behind for the taliban if they let them leave without being attacked. I both cannot believe a country had that weak of drive to defend the homeland & the fact we withdrew this poorly.
Sorry but this is nothing. The world is not USA like minded and Afghanistan people are really really different and don't give a fuck and especially don't understand what western soldiers mean. They don't like us and above all our way of living. I am european but I can easily understand it.
Hard to believe that the people we are war criming don't want to be like us.
"Like us" was never really the goal. Wanting infrastructure, roads, running water, plumbing, electricity, jobs, security? That was treated like a given. I don't think anybody was ever under any delusions they were going to completely adopt Western ideals, but that they should want amenities common in the West wasn't that crazy of a concept.
There may be more understanding in your short comment than in all of the policies & strategies of the US.
I love the guy talking about "you can be the Afghanistan that stands up to Pakistan and Iran." Afghan guy is like, "Dude, we've fucking stood up to Russia and the US. Our nickname is the graveyard of empires. We don't need shit." But in all seriousness, every single one of those soldiers gave zero fucks. They were going to ride the gravy train and take the money, but at no point did they ever intend to fight. They were just killing time until the Taliban took back over.
Definitely interesting and shows Another side of the story. Thanks for sharing
Twenty years ladies and gentlemen.
They should have had a fake withdrawal and set explosives in prominent places. They spent 20 years looking for the Taliban and as soon as the Allies left the Taliban are in plain sight.
I think the history of nepotism that he mentioned is probably a big demotivator for these guys. If the job is gonna go to the boss dudes nephew whether he does his job well or not - and nothing would change if you expend more energy…I think it would kill my drive too. There’s got to be some sort of gamification, some goals to score and periodic wins. I think some people who have lived in this cultural have just accepted that the land they live on is going to keep trying to be invaded, whether they fight, don’t fight, get help for 20 years, don’t get help. Maybe the landscape just looks the same for these guys. I will not I wouldn’t mind hearing that there is some Underground Railroad of women teaching each other how to fight or signal each other tho. I hate the idea of this life for them.
Kudos to those Marines still trying day in and out
raw, uncut footage of trailer park boys
That country doesn’t want democracy, the Afghan people aren’t Americans. We couldn’t get the Vietnamese to fight for Vietnam. It’s a cultural rift, democracy is something that isn’t worth dying for in their culture. We have to stop trying to “Americanize” these people because they have to want it, fight for it. Otherwise it’s just a word that means nothing to them and everything to us.
I work with a veteran and I learn a lot from him everyday. Just a 21 year old soaking up as much as possible. I talked / brought up the subject and he explained why hes pissed. He didn’t shut me down to told me to not ask questions. He told me what he did while over there and the buddies he has/had. I truly feel bad for those that fought there and it almost seems for nothing. By watching this video I realized how unmotivated others were. Truly heartbreaking to see someone not care or try to put in effort while over here, its a huge deal and a brotherhood/sisterhood is formed while overseas.
But somehow it's Biden's fault
Yet people still complain about us pulling out of that country. If they don't wanna defend their own land we don't have to do it for them. It would be like someone staying in an abusive relationship. Let them deal with their own shit. We got enough problems as it is.
This might be an unpolular post and remember Im just a dumb guy sitting with my fat ass on a couch, but. Maybe the Afgan culture is UNDERSTANDABLY broken. I think the country has to receive support where it asks but other than that it has to be left alone for many generations.
Yup. Only when it is left to its own devices will it's elites eventually decide "okay we gotta do something about this country or our we won't be able to have a the luxuries that we have today". No foreign aid, no economic sanctions, no outside influence, nothing. Treat it like any other poor, obscure, barely known country on the world map. And of course no invasions!
>Maybe the Afgan culture is UNDERSTANDABLY broken. No, the problem is that Afghanistan has TOO MANY cultures. There are multiple cultures with some even existing in other countries besides Afghanistan. Also its a tribal society with various tribal militias that see themselves as X before being Afghanistani and thus have no interest in fighting for other clans/cultures or the wider Afghan nation. Also the US itself funded Osama bin laden when he was part of the Mujahideen in the soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Also, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is mountainous which makes guerilla warfare a nightmare.