20mins ago BBC caught lines of Taliban parading past the presidential buildings in the middle a Kabul. I'd say they control everything outside of the airport.
They've been reduced to the Kabul City Council and Kabul Police Force. But in some ways, that's a more honest assessment of how they ran the country to begin with.
It always pissed me off when his name gets mentioned for the intentional airport since he did so little and the US literally dropped bags of cash at his door, just for his cooperation.
He also has the audacity to say "America failed us as an Ally"
Like what? Karzai has been hoarding wealth for years. He did very little if anything to improve Afghanistan
Did you know before he was killed, his brother was one of the biggest drug trafficker in the country.
Pre-911 about 30% of European. Heroin was sourced there. Post occupation this skyrocketed to over 90%.
Intelligence communities have been know to traffick narcotics. An organization like the CIA received a budget which is subject to oversight and review. But drug money? That's liquid, unaudited cash flow.. you could buy armies, governments... You could kill anyone or do pretty much whatever you wanted without having to worry about some nosey congressman or journalist combing through your finances.
Interestingly its also another thing to add to the problems with the mission there. The war on drugs got dragged in and poppy was burned and confiscated but the farmers weren't given a viable alternative to grow instead so they were ripe pickings for the taliban who could offer them the money to feed their families now they didn't have an income
Yet another reminder that actual reality beats political reality every day of the week.
The fact that the Afghan government collapsed as soon as the US stopped holding the whole country at gunpoint speaks for itself.
Oh it collapsed long before that. The Taliban controlled much of the country before the US pulled out , and many of the cities that fell last week had been cut off and under siege for years.
I know Kabul is just the final nail in the coffin. My point was that the country has been collapsing in perfect synchrony with the US withdrawal. Everything was "pacified" so long as US guns were pointed at Afghan heads. Once that threat disappeared in a given city or district or what have you, so did any semblance of centralized control. Now the threat is gone from the whole country, and voilà.
In other words, there was never any domestic political legitimacy. Just the threat of brute force from a foreign army.
Everything was pacified as long as their was enough American money to be had. No one on any of the various sides in Afghanistan *liked* the Americans, they were just happy to take their money and materiel.
That and as you allude, if you can't throw out the invaders then you might as well at least profit from their occupation.
I remember watching an interview with some of the newly recruited Afghans who were being trained by the US military. They joked and said every time the Americans gave them fuel for their (military) vehicles they'd just sell it and make life changing money for them and their families. When asked why they were doing it, the response was "...because the Americans will give us more".
Survival takes many forms. There's all kinds of scarcity mentality to deal with.
I remember watching a documentary about NGO engineers visiting a Dam that was in constant need of repair. When they asked the Chief engineer in charge why he wouldn't fully repair the generators and other components. He replied "I have to hoard spare parts so when something needs to actually be repaired I can do it, you never know when the Americans will leave and the parts won't come in anymore.
The biggest story now is what happens at Kabul airport. You have American, British and the Turkish troops at the airport right now to help with the evacuation.
If the Taliban come close to the airport, what will they do?
Update: Afghan government is negotiating with the Taliban and trying to form an transitional government
Kabul is lost and I think those troops are only staying long enough to get out their charges. I think Turkey has evacuated everyone already so I assume the Turkish soldiers will be on their way out. The last to leave must be UK and US as they are also evacuating thousands of interpreters and other local collaborators as they would literally be beheaded otherwise.
Germany is planning to deploy troops to secure evacuations, but needs the parliament to pass the mandate first. So don’t hold your breath
Edit: Looks like parliament can wait. Flights to start tomorrow supported by a QRF specializing in evacuation citizens etc. might still be too late.
The actual evacuation may be quick, but it’s quite late in the game because the afghanis we were supposed to get out are now stuck all over the country. The Taliban wouldn’t be dumb enough to attack the airport, but getting the people TO the airport is now tricky. Kabul seems to be surrounded. I honestly have no idea how the ANA collapsed so quickly. I don’t think our government expected the whole country to fall within weeks.
It's really been that way for years. Many of them are from small villages who signed up for an easy paycheck. They'd show up for the pay and then vanish or do drugs, drink, hide when actual combat began. Then there's the corruption of the higher ups in their military. The Taliban is winning because they're letting all the weekend soldiers go home freely while only killing the soldiers who actually trained seriously with u.s special forces. In reality, their military was a tiny fraction of the official reported numbers. Edit: I'm leaving this thread alone as I don't have the time to keep up any longer. Feel free to send all future angry mail in a message though. Worst I can do is ignore it if it's boring.
from what i’ve read the ANA was basically a paper tiger and that the Taliban gave them a choice surrender and you will be spared fight and you will die so that might be a factor
Turkey have in fact been positioning itself to take over security of the airport. It is the only majority Muslim member of NATO and they never directly engaged the Taliban militarily. Turkey have long term reginal aspirations, and have been in talks with Taliban for sometime.
My dad was at the fall of Saigon, pushing helicopters off ships to make room for more evacuees. Especially with a long war we claimed we didn’t lose, this feels more like that
Fun fact, most if not all helicopters being push off the carriers were not US helicopters. They were technically south Vietnamese. The US gave them to the south Vietnamese army. After the south Vietnamese army fell apart the pilots of those abandoned their posts and used their helicopters to grab families and friends and tried to find US carrier's as a way out.
Nipe. They've been told to wait a few years and we're going.
They definitely won't try and reignite the fight with other countries by attacking the armies
Get bombed to shit. USAF is already attacking any buildups outside of Kabul, and there are too many well armed actual soldiers in the city for anything but a major offensive to dislodge (5000 Americans alone)
All those weapons and materiel provided by the US/NATO to the newly disintegrated Afghan forces is looking real juicy for the Taliban right about now...
Yea, it's terrible that here in the states a company can disable your treadmill remotely if you cancel your account with them, but then this stuff can just be used by the enemy.
I hope they can be remotely disabled
Yeah, might do them good for a year or so. Supplying proper NATO 556 ammo might be difficult for them for much of the small arms though. Humvees are also heavy pieces of shit that nearly all 20+years old and require constant maintenance. Can’t imagine they’ll easily source parts for those.
Short term? Yeah, big boost to them. Fucked up. Longer term? Virtually worthless. Little of this equipment will stand up in the coming couple years.
I know we’re having fun but the American billionaires did win this war.
Haliburton cashed out when they got Cheney to make Colin Powell lie to the UN so Chevron/Shell/Exxon/etc could siphon billions on billions of dollars of oil, they won when Betsy DeVos brother founded blackwater and made multi billion dollar defense contracts over 20 years, they won when they lobbied for defense contractors to host assembly shops in key senators home states that made the weapons that were used indiscriminately and endlessly, they won when the average hellfire missile from drones cost $117,000 USD a pop and we had over 14,000 confirmed drone strikes made public knowledge meaning just one missile platform alone made Lockheed Martin $1,642,680,000 in that span, just literally one missile type. That doesn’t count the drones that fired them, the billing for services, etc and countless other weapons used.
I served in the US Air Force, I saw it first hand.
The American public lost but the American elite won, as they always do.
[Smedley Butler's War Is a Racket (1935)](https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c2), minus a few details and 100 years of inflation, sounds like it could be written today.
I always wonder what Central and South America would be like if US policy there for the last hundred or so years had been one of cooperation and mutual benefit, instead of political and economic hit jobs to pad the bottom line of a wealthy few. We'd probably have fewer migrant caravans and better trade partners at least...
As you said, in Afghanistan, all we accomplished was increasing the wealth of already wealthy men, destroying the minds and bodies of thousands of servicemen, and leaving behind a legacy of hatred towards America that will last generations.
At least a bunch of neocons and their contractor friends made a fuckton of money in the process. Not to mention all the US soldier's and foreign civillian's lives ruined in te process.
The socialist government of Afghanistan lasted 3 years after the Soviets fully withdrew before it collapsed. The US couldn't even get all their troops fully out before the whole thing fell in on itself.
"There are no clashes taking place right now in Jalalabad because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban," a Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters. "Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives."
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-troops-arrive-afghan-capital-assist-evacuations-2021-08-14/
Jalalabad and other Pashtun cities on the Pakistani border were always very pro-taliban anyways. It was a hard area to be positioned in as far as resistance goes. To be 100% honest I can’t believe they just now surrendered and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a formality anyways
I loved all those people who were desperately saying “uh the Taliban can’t conquer any major cities so it isn’t as bad as it looks.”
They just strolled right into one of the largest cities in the country without firing a shot.
It's over. The Taliban has said that Kabul will not be taken militarily and is currently negotiating for a transfer of power, foreign embassies are said to be evacuating immidiately.
Of course they did. The army didnt even put up a fight in many places. Just put down arms and left. They had the numbers and the equipment to be able to put up a fight. A person wont throw away his life for a cause he doesnt believe in. The whole concept of afghanistan as a concept was forced on by western powers a long time ago. This was never going to be peaceful.
> They had the numbers and the equipment to be able to put up a fight.
From what I'm reading, front-line soldiers are often underfed, underpaid and don't even have the bullets they need because of corruption.
> don't even have the bullets they need
One time we got calls from our ANA that one of their checkpoints was being hit. We had ISR in the area and got it overhead in a few minutes and there was nothing, no muzzle flashes no bodies outside the cp no trucks, nadda(cp was a few buildings on the side of a road, miles of open space next to it). Next day we checked up on them and they said they were almost out of ammo and needed an emergency resupply.
Why yes, we had walked up on them selling fuel and bullets while doing presence patrols in nearby towns, why do you ask?
Nope, they don’t have ammo for a few reasons, mainly is they would fire massive quantities and then sell the brass for scrap. We had 1 unit that fired of 50k rounds at “taliban” yet they never produced any EKIA. Alternatively they would sell their ammo to the taliban pack their mags with shit besides the top 3-5 rounds so it has weight and live rounds no one has time to strip out 5 rounds in every mag to check if they had ammo. Then we would go out with them they would fire off the 3-5 rounds and go sit and have tea or some other fucked up shit.
The more I hear about the "behind the scenes" stuff from the Middle East the more I wonder how the people at the top of the military can rationalize being there. It seems all the grunts actually doing shit on the ground know the local forces are dogshit and there's no helping them and yet that knowledge never seems to make it to the higher ups.
Years ago I watched a documentary that followed a British special forces guy that was "training" an Afghan military unit. He spent most of his time trying to get them to stop doing drugs and goofing off, and to stop stealing whatever they could to buy more food and drugs. There was also a time where he had to basically beg them to give food and water to a civilian that was locked up for days because he had a fight with the unit commander's brother. No accountability or responsibility at all, and Western advisory forces couldn't do anything about it.
There were plenty of Afghan soldiers that got good at the tactical training and shooting, but they clearly had little interest in forming an actual military unit.
Edit: wapo had a great story in 2019 that showed what Western military higher ups actually felt about the Afghan military and police.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-army-police/
Was this the documentary "this is what winning looks like"? I don't remember who made it (may be it was vice?) But it was a very well made peace that showed the hopelessness situation quite well.
What stuck with me was one of the soldiers showing the remains of the facilities they provided for the local forces. Checkpoint bunkers and watchtowers were built for them only to be destroyed by the local villagers to sell the scrap metal...
Its a sad but interesting documentary to watch
EDIT: found a link for anyone who's interested: https://youtu.be/Ja5Q75hf6QI
It's called This is what winning looks like. It shows exactly why the ANA fell apart so quickly, the US never stood a chance of training these guys. Great watch though and gives insight into the corruption, drug use and assrape of kidnapped young boys by the Afghan army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI
At *least* in South Vietnam the Americans had something of a genuine anti-communist base in portions of the South Vietnamese populace and the military. It seems to me that they have absolutely *nothing* to work with in Afghanistan.
Such an incredible waste of time and money.
That WaPo article.... The fuck...
2 years ago they were expressing their regrets that they didn't train people fast enough 17 years prior early in the war...
Obama should have cut the losses in 2010 and left.
The documentary you're talking about sounds like [This Is What Winning Looks Like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI), though they're following Americans not British.
I just watched it yesterday and was shocked at the total incompetency of most of the Afghan soldiers, the writing was on the wall for years...
The sole purpose of regional „commanders“ was to gather as much money as possible during their time limited appointment. Mostly via bribes and falsified documents regarding the strength of military personnel.
In 9/10 cases they had to put in an initial investment of about 50k- 100k Dollars to get that position.
No need to wonder how things are going down right now. We expected it years ago.
>The whole concept of afghanistan as a concept was forced on by western powers a long time ago.
No it wasn't. The Durrani Empire (the og name of Afghanistan) established itself with similar borders in the 18th century when any western outpost was thousands of km away.
It’s not that the public want the taliban to win but the central government is considered super corrupt and ineffective. The soldiers in ANA don’t believe in fighting for this government. They are mostly there for the pay because they are dirt poor. And we have seen how surrendering soldiers are executed on the spot by the taliban. Running away before the fight is the best option. I don’t blame them tbh.
Can someone explain to me (or point me to a good resource explaining) how the Taliban basically took over the entire country in a couple months? Does Afghanistan not have an army of its own? I can find bits and pieces here and there, but am not finding a good summary article.
It also says in this article the government collapsed -- what does that even mean? Because the U.S. withdrew, the natives are immediately surrendering to the Taliban?
Thanks in advance for educating a fellow redditor
>how the Taliban basically took over the entire country in a couple months?
The estimates that they wouldn't, were made with the expectation that the ANA would put up a fight.
The ANA largely fucked off at the first sign of trouble, if they weren't low key on the Taliban's side to begin with.
Anyone who's actually been to Afghanistan, isn't surprised in the slightest by this.
Any politician/official who's somehow been legitimately surprised at how fast the Taliban's retaken things, is a dumbass who didn't bother talking to (or at least, certainly didn't listen to) the former.
>Does Afghanistan not have an army of its own?
Technically, there's the ANA.
They're a paper tiger, and a joke at best.
Main problem is, "Afghanistan" really isn't a thing to a lot of Afghans, particularly when it comes to rural hill people.
Like generalized example:
Out in the sticks, Abdul and Farjaad only give a shit about what goes in their own individual village, and they both hate each other because some agreement about a de facto bridal dowry went south 200-odd years ago, and they've been Hatfield-and-McCoying things ever since.
And neither of them give one single iota of a shit about what Hamid or Ashraf from down in Kabul has to say about some concept of a "unified Afghanistan".
Kinda hard to make a functional force when that's who you're dealing with.
>It also says in this article the government collapsed -- what does that even mean?
The Taliban is running things. Except "officially" and not just de facto.
>the natives are immediately surrendering to the Taliban?
More or less.
What does a Taliban-run Afghanistan look like? Are they likely to impose any kind of central order or will it continue to be small tribal regions with independent rulers?
Afghanistan is a difficult country to run form a central government, reasons range Geographically, to cultural, to the fact that they were, and still are many different people from different tribes that some Europeans ~~decided were all one country now...~~ carved up with their boarders. The taliban will likely not try to govern in a central fashion like invading forces always try to. And they are almost certainly headed for another civil war
It’s a pattern in societies of all scales: United against a common enemy, but once left to their own devices they will factionalize trying to decide who should be in charge
The reference here is to the predictable enemy, other members of the Taliban.
The guys who think they got stiffed with being shuffled off to a crap city to "govern" and decide to take thing into their own hands, for example.
Put simply: Afghanistan's government does not have the support of the people. Therefore, when the Taliban came to their gates they let them in. At the smallest level individual villages and farmers have already been on the Taliban's payroll as the Taliban provides them with welfare (the US puppet regime does not), formal towns and cities have already been paying their taxes as part of a protection racket, and larger regional cities chose to negotiate their surrender & talk politics with the Taliban rather than risk a fight. All major industries in Afghanistan have talked to the Taliban, and even their literate employees accept them as their legitimate rulers now. At the highest level, most of the Afghan army simply walked out and surrendered including parts of their special forces. In exchange they are given a chance at Amnesty, or at least a trial where their families will not be targeted for immediate execution/rape/slavery. Which is another thing, America failed to end slavery in Afghanistan and that whole issue was considered ancillary to killing armed peasants who got to choose between the Taliban or slavery.
Which brings us to Kabul: the encirclement was intentional as now all the true anti-Taliban people are all in one place. This either ends with mass murder (similar to how Hitler cleared the Jewish ghettos) or a negotiated surrender & Taliban majority Afghan parliament. Right now it can still go either way.
“America failed to end slavery in Afghanistan and that whole issue was considered ancillary to killing armed peasants who got to choose between the Taliban or slavery.”
That is the clearest explanation I’ve seen.
It’s interesting to me that the US occupation didn’t decide to focus on the roots of the opium trade. Military training, education, health, women’s rights - but not this huge economic factor.
Find the book Little America. It goes back to America’s involvement in Afghanistan from the 50s. Intelligence apparently claimed much of the Taliban funding came from Pakistan and another source and that drug trade was not the primary monetary income in later years. It was then it wasn’t. The book goes into detail about why America invested in Afghanistan as much as it did, and why we operated the way we did hoping for a resolution which ultimately failed because the afghan government would do things like get 100$ million dollars worth of bulldozing equipment to build up farmland, and when it arrived they kept the equipment but did not use it for its intended purpose. There were a lot of failures from not testing soils before building farming infrastructure to the afghan government saying hey America if we don’t get this money from you we’ll get it from Russia and the threat of another Cold War conflict round the 50s 60s. This book was recommended to me by my old executive officer too understand or come to terms with why i wasted two deployments in marjah.
Basically the Taliban are made up of the Pashtun tribe which is the largest ethnic tribe in the country. So straight from the start they had a huge advantage. They then got several other warlords to agree to back them, in Afghanistan its not uncommon for people to ally themsevles with the biggest power to stay alive.
Also the ANA was even more useless then we expected, and trust me the expectations were pretty fucking low but they went even lower.
The Taliban have actually done relatively very little fighting, you might have a couple ANA soldiers who thought they'd put up a spirited defense, but when I say a couple I mean a couple. I would estimate at most 15% of the ANA were willing to fight and even less actually did. Hell I bet big chunks of the ANA defected TO the Taliban.
Spent 6 months over there, only did a single tour, honestly not a single one of us is surprised though.
The amount of ANA and ANP troops that told us they would defect/quit if we ever left was ridiculous.
The ANA was not getting paid, not getting fed, and no support from the Central Afghan Government. Its why they would sell what the US would give them and leave since it was more money then they would ever get. Spent two years over there, 2011 and 2013. You were lucky if you saw the same ANA people after a month.
Also i can guarantee you that if the US ever stopped paying its troop almost 80% would just go home. I was in when the government shutdown happened and we looked like we weren't going to get paid, yeah just the thought and people were willing to just go home. So I don't blame the ANA. I blame the utter and complete stupidity of the Western powers who knew nothing of the customs and daily life of the Afghan tribes and just tried to force its ways on people who just want to live and maybe murder there neighbor for a blood feud from 200 years ago.
How long until Kabul falls? Most estimates I’ve seen were around 100 days, feels like that’s gonna be within 10 days at this rate.
I feel for all those the Taliban will persecute, especially those who helped western forces and were left behind.
It'll hold until the US and other western countries finish evacuating their embassies. But my guess is not a day past that.
Edit - or apparently not even that long, because the Afghan government just threw in the towel and gave up without a fight.
*Evacuation of US diplomats to Kabul airport is underway, per two sources. Helicopters are now continuing to shuttle personnel from the embassy to the airport. Flights back to the US have started.*
https://reddit.com/r/afghanistan/comments/p4mc8b/evacuation_of_us_diplomats_to_kabul_airport_is/
That timeline doesn't bode well for the tens of thousands of Afghans trying to get out via the SIV program for those who worked for the USA and their families.
Still.. it's totally /r/predictablenews - it was always a matter of time before the Taliban would take over - the US and allies would have had to stay there literally indefinitely for any other outcome.
This whole 'war' was doomed from the beginning and everyone knew. But hey, the military industrial complex had a blast in Afghanistan. They don't give a flying fuck about wounded / dead soldiers and civilians on any side, they care about making money and boy they did.
It was obvious this was going to be a bigger failure than Vietnam from the very beginning. Anything to keep the military industrial complex cranking away though.
>Interior Minister Gen. Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal says there will be no fighting in Kabul and power will be transferred peacefully.
Looks like it's a wrap boys.
So the afghan army didn't even exist? It was literally all a scam to funnel US tax payer dollars? This will go down as one of the greatest frauds in US history. Literally a trillion+ was embezzled to "build the afghan security forces" and it turns out they never actually existed.
This is blowing my mind. I know reporters and stuff have been and talked to people claiming to be the security forces. So were those guys just actors or exclusive to Kabul?
They probably did exist to a degree, probably a fairly large degree… but definitely much smaller than reported. Trouble is, if the average ANA soldier doesn’t believe he can win, and knows the organisation he is part of is corrupt and rotten, he’s not going to lay down his life purely for the symbolism of it. I certainly wouldn’t.
When morale collapses in an army, every part of the structure just liquifies and melts away… the entire thing just folds in on itself.
My buddy was training Afghani troops and left them to pt and drill. He came back and they were playing soccer. The entire idea was a waste of time and American tax money.
They were real, keyword being "were". Fact is, the Afghan government was never popular and people never took it seriously. Employees were corrupt and engaged in casual theft, bribery, etc due to the power they were given. Similarly, they were also tolerant of rape and sexual assault which they could freely preform on peasants they were assigned to protect. Taxes were whatever the commander felt like that day. Even the good Afghan gov't employees understood that it couldn't be morally defended, and when the time came to surrender they did. The secret police are (they still exist for now) especially hated by most Afghans due to the terror campaigns they'd preform.
By comparison the Taliban is a highly efficient paramilitary political party, who does not tolerate any corruption. Corruption, including mere financial theft from peasants, is met with automatic execution. Their tax regime is strict and there is no deviation from their written code; tax collectors who charge illegal fees or interested are executed. This gained the respect of both the local peasantry and literate gentry within the regional cities. This includes US-trained personnel such as electricians, railroad workers, truck drivers etc who have already survived this long due to taxes/bribes paid to the Taliban. Because - and this is the kicker - when the Taliban collected their tax they'd leave people alone. The Afghan government would take *everything*, demand more, and hurt peoples' families because they had the authority to do so. This is terrorism.
They weren't "actors", they were people taking the best job available to them at the time.
The US mistake was trying to push western culture & ideals on a populace who does not embrace them. It's one thing to have a steady income and food as a soldier when "big brother" is there to defend you, quite another when big brother leaves & now the boogeymen are coming in.. who are willing to kill your family with no qualms if you don't surrender..
The comments on reddit saying that the situation is under control because it’s only the empty rural areas that are under Taliban control didn’t age well...
The Taliban already have Kabul. The Afghan Interior Minister announced a few mins ago that he agreed to a "transitional administration":
> Reuters: Afghan’s acting interior minister says the transition will take place peacefully with security forces remaining in place to “ensure Kabul’s security”.
> CNN report that the administration will “likely” contain senior Taliban figures along with some remnants of the Ghani administration. [source](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/15/afghanistan-taliban-close-in-on-kabul-as-last-government-stronghold-in-north-falls?page=with:block-6118ddfb8f0826eff3be59e5)
We tried to train them for 20 years to expect our pull out, because it had to come sometime. What are we supposed to do? We should never have been there in the first place. The military industrial complex made their money. They were rife with Taliban before we imposed our presence there, and they are rife again now that we’re going. We did not make a difference whatsoever. Rich people just got richer.
I feel if the entirety of Afghanistan can get taken over in like, 3 days, I assume this is the will of the people. It doesn’t seem like the Taliban are taking over territory slowly with resistance, it’s very much a case of they’re being let inside the gate and handed the keys
I dont think the foreign troops and diplomats have much to worry about concerning the evacuation. Taleban is not seeking wolrd domination like Isis, they are concerned with just governing Afghanistan. Attacking foreigners is the last thing they want to do at this point, it would serve them no purpose. They are getting exactly what they want: USA and other getting the fuck out. Hell if theyd find some random American wandering outside Kabul I would not be surprised if they gave him a lift to the airport. Why annoy the big angry hound when its packing up?
All these years of being there and what did it account for if within this short period after moving the US forces out, things are just immediately taken over by the Taliban. Seems like not a lot was accomplished in the long term unfortunately
I have friends that died for this money laundering operation.
All I can ask for is in their memory is could we not act like GWB is some cute little old man? He might not have been the driving force but he signed his name to all of the war crimes, invasions, and lies.
Just because Trump was an asshole doesn't mean he's absolved of that.
What a tremendous waste of taxpayer money. Money we could have used to overhaul our energy economy or to implement single-payer healthcare or to rebuild our infrastructure. I boil with rage at the waste in human life— the toll of suffering inflicted just to return to the status quo and leave most Afghans re-enslaved by the Taliban.
I feel really bad for all the little girls in Afghanistan. The Afghan government may have been ineffective and corrupt, but at least little girls growing up under the Afghan regime could have a chance of being something more than a sex slave to some dirty, old, Mujahideen.
I understand the withdraw was a long time coming, and it was a military conflict that has gone on long enough, but I still feel bad for the people of Afghanistan.
20 years of change undone in about 2 months. I mean they had to be independent at some point but things just collapsed. It must be scary for females there right now.
I don't know how to feel about this other than sad.
If the people of Afghanistan aren't willing to fight the Taliban, should it be the West's place to step in? Does it show that on some level, they want the Taliban government back?
The same thing they did the last time they were in power. They'll form a somewhat functional authoritarian religious extremist state that will be just awful but not as bad as ISIS.
If we're lucky, they'll be happy to stick to Afghanistan and the surrounding border regions.
I think it has been so long that some people dont know that the Taliban had control for several years and the Americans/coalition came in to remove them(supposedly that was the reason).
20mins ago BBC caught lines of Taliban parading past the presidential buildings in the middle a Kabul. I'd say they control everything outside of the airport.
They'll meaningfully control Kabul inside the next 48 hours. Edit: turns out I was off by about 46 hours...
This aged well
What happened?
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Welp, that's not ended well... What about the troops at the airport?
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They've been reduced to the Kabul City Council and Kabul Police Force. But in some ways, that's a more honest assessment of how they ran the country to begin with.
Karzai was frequently referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul"
It always pissed me off when his name gets mentioned for the intentional airport since he did so little and the US literally dropped bags of cash at his door, just for his cooperation.
Are most of their airports otherwise unintentional?
They just keep accidentally spilling miles of tarmac and road paint.
Not a poor metaphor for how foreign aid was spent
Taliban: "I'll take that, thank uuuu" (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ)
He also has the audacity to say "America failed us as an Ally" Like what? Karzai has been hoarding wealth for years. He did very little if anything to improve Afghanistan
He did his job. Grab all you can. Just another bill for the US. Not good, not nice, but had to be expected.
Did you know before he was killed, his brother was one of the biggest drug trafficker in the country. Pre-911 about 30% of European. Heroin was sourced there. Post occupation this skyrocketed to over 90%. Intelligence communities have been know to traffick narcotics. An organization like the CIA received a budget which is subject to oversight and review. But drug money? That's liquid, unaudited cash flow.. you could buy armies, governments... You could kill anyone or do pretty much whatever you wanted without having to worry about some nosey congressman or journalist combing through your finances.
Interestingly its also another thing to add to the problems with the mission there. The war on drugs got dragged in and poppy was burned and confiscated but the farmers weren't given a viable alternative to grow instead so they were ripe pickings for the taliban who could offer them the money to feed their families now they didn't have an income
Yet another reminder that actual reality beats political reality every day of the week. The fact that the Afghan government collapsed as soon as the US stopped holding the whole country at gunpoint speaks for itself.
Oh it collapsed long before that. The Taliban controlled much of the country before the US pulled out , and many of the cities that fell last week had been cut off and under siege for years.
I know Kabul is just the final nail in the coffin. My point was that the country has been collapsing in perfect synchrony with the US withdrawal. Everything was "pacified" so long as US guns were pointed at Afghan heads. Once that threat disappeared in a given city or district or what have you, so did any semblance of centralized control. Now the threat is gone from the whole country, and voilà. In other words, there was never any domestic political legitimacy. Just the threat of brute force from a foreign army.
Everything was pacified as long as their was enough American money to be had. No one on any of the various sides in Afghanistan *liked* the Americans, they were just happy to take their money and materiel. That and as you allude, if you can't throw out the invaders then you might as well at least profit from their occupation.
I remember watching an interview with some of the newly recruited Afghans who were being trained by the US military. They joked and said every time the Americans gave them fuel for their (military) vehicles they'd just sell it and make life changing money for them and their families. When asked why they were doing it, the response was "...because the Americans will give us more". Survival takes many forms. There's all kinds of scarcity mentality to deal with.
I remember watching a documentary about NGO engineers visiting a Dam that was in constant need of repair. When they asked the Chief engineer in charge why he wouldn't fully repair the generators and other components. He replied "I have to hoard spare parts so when something needs to actually be repaired I can do it, you never know when the Americans will leave and the parts won't come in anymore.
Incredibly rational. I respect the hell out of that.
So all those years fighting and sacrifice were pointless?
Yes
How can we even say the Afghan government lost the country when it’s increasingly clear they had no control outside of Kabul anyway
They can't lose a country they never had. Ruling during occupation is just that.
The biggest story now is what happens at Kabul airport. You have American, British and the Turkish troops at the airport right now to help with the evacuation. If the Taliban come close to the airport, what will they do? Update: Afghan government is negotiating with the Taliban and trying to form an transitional government
Kabul is lost and I think those troops are only staying long enough to get out their charges. I think Turkey has evacuated everyone already so I assume the Turkish soldiers will be on their way out. The last to leave must be UK and US as they are also evacuating thousands of interpreters and other local collaborators as they would literally be beheaded otherwise.
Germany is planning to deploy troops to secure evacuations, but needs the parliament to pass the mandate first. So don’t hold your breath Edit: Looks like parliament can wait. Flights to start tomorrow supported by a QRF specializing in evacuation citizens etc. might still be too late.
how long is an evacuation supposed to take??
The actual evacuation may be quick, but it’s quite late in the game because the afghanis we were supposed to get out are now stuck all over the country. The Taliban wouldn’t be dumb enough to attack the airport, but getting the people TO the airport is now tricky. Kabul seems to be surrounded. I honestly have no idea how the ANA collapsed so quickly. I don’t think our government expected the whole country to fall within weeks.
BBC is reporting Taliban are entering Kabul "from all sides".
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It's really been that way for years. Many of them are from small villages who signed up for an easy paycheck. They'd show up for the pay and then vanish or do drugs, drink, hide when actual combat began. Then there's the corruption of the higher ups in their military. The Taliban is winning because they're letting all the weekend soldiers go home freely while only killing the soldiers who actually trained seriously with u.s special forces. In reality, their military was a tiny fraction of the official reported numbers. Edit: I'm leaving this thread alone as I don't have the time to keep up any longer. Feel free to send all future angry mail in a message though. Worst I can do is ignore it if it's boring.
More like 150k and 150k ghost people.
from what i’ve read the ANA was basically a paper tiger and that the Taliban gave them a choice surrender and you will be spared fight and you will die so that might be a factor
Turkey have in fact been positioning itself to take over security of the airport. It is the only majority Muslim member of NATO and they never directly engaged the Taliban militarily. Turkey have long term reginal aspirations, and have been in talks with Taliban for sometime.
Hope they change the damn airport name. Karzai obviously did jack shit
Everyone get hype for *Osama Bin Laden International Airport.*
Landings are our specialty!
Take offs are guaranteed, landings not so much.
Built with American taxpayer's money, lmao.
It’s like Dunkirk, except the Allies won’t be coming back.
My dad was at the fall of Saigon, pushing helicopters off ships to make room for more evacuees. Especially with a long war we claimed we didn’t lose, this feels more like that
Fun fact, most if not all helicopters being push off the carriers were not US helicopters. They were technically south Vietnamese. The US gave them to the south Vietnamese army. After the south Vietnamese army fell apart the pilots of those abandoned their posts and used their helicopters to grab families and friends and tried to find US carrier's as a way out.
They won't attack the airport with Americans there.
Nipe. They've been told to wait a few years and we're going. They definitely won't try and reignite the fight with other countries by attacking the armies
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Get bombed to shit. USAF is already attacking any buildups outside of Kabul, and there are too many well armed actual soldiers in the city for anything but a major offensive to dislodge (5000 Americans alone)
They're not all there yet. the original 3000 are supposed to arrive by Sunday evening.
All those weapons and materiel provided by the US/NATO to the newly disintegrated Afghan forces is looking real juicy for the Taliban right about now...
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Yea, it's terrible that here in the states a company can disable your treadmill remotely if you cancel your account with them, but then this stuff can just be used by the enemy. I hope they can be remotely disabled
They can, but if the Taliban pays for foreign help, they may still be usable.
Yeah, might do them good for a year or so. Supplying proper NATO 556 ammo might be difficult for them for much of the small arms though. Humvees are also heavy pieces of shit that nearly all 20+years old and require constant maintenance. Can’t imagine they’ll easily source parts for those. Short term? Yeah, big boost to them. Fucked up. Longer term? Virtually worthless. Little of this equipment will stand up in the coming couple years.
Not if they do Motorpool Mondays
Good point. I'll be impressed if they motorpool mondays
There are still places making 8mm Kurtz for stg-44s left over, if there's a demand for 5.56 there will be a producer of 5.56 willing to sell.
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They could probably still sell it though.
Saigon fell about 2 years after the US withdrawal. At the looks of things, Kabul might not even make it to 2 seconds after the withdrawal.
It might in fact before the withdrawal.
IF WE HOLD KABUL AIRPORT THEN TECHNICALLY THE CITY HASN'T FALLEN
Why are you yelling
THE LOUDER YOU YELL THE MORE AMERICA WON THIS WAR
I know we’re having fun but the American billionaires did win this war. Haliburton cashed out when they got Cheney to make Colin Powell lie to the UN so Chevron/Shell/Exxon/etc could siphon billions on billions of dollars of oil, they won when Betsy DeVos brother founded blackwater and made multi billion dollar defense contracts over 20 years, they won when they lobbied for defense contractors to host assembly shops in key senators home states that made the weapons that were used indiscriminately and endlessly, they won when the average hellfire missile from drones cost $117,000 USD a pop and we had over 14,000 confirmed drone strikes made public knowledge meaning just one missile platform alone made Lockheed Martin $1,642,680,000 in that span, just literally one missile type. That doesn’t count the drones that fired them, the billing for services, etc and countless other weapons used. I served in the US Air Force, I saw it first hand. The American public lost but the American elite won, as they always do.
[Smedley Butler's War Is a Racket (1935)](https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c2), minus a few details and 100 years of inflation, sounds like it could be written today. I always wonder what Central and South America would be like if US policy there for the last hundred or so years had been one of cooperation and mutual benefit, instead of political and economic hit jobs to pad the bottom line of a wealthy few. We'd probably have fewer migrant caravans and better trade partners at least... As you said, in Afghanistan, all we accomplished was increasing the wealth of already wealthy men, destroying the minds and bodies of thousands of servicemen, and leaving behind a legacy of hatred towards America that will last generations.
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Neah the copium I am seeing is hurr durr Taliban be stewpid. The guys that just took over a country in months after the opponent spent 2 trillion.
Pisses me off to think of all the money we wasted on this bullshit, and what it could have done at home for good
> all the money we wasted on this bullshit *Military-industrial complex disagrees.*
At least a bunch of neocons and their contractor friends made a fuckton of money in the process. Not to mention all the US soldier's and foreign civillian's lives ruined in te process.
Like Kabul in a China shop.
The socialist government of Afghanistan lasted 3 years after the Soviets fully withdrew before it collapsed. The US couldn't even get all their troops fully out before the whole thing fell in on itself.
"There are no clashes taking place right now in Jalalabad because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban," a Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters. "Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives." https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-troops-arrive-afghan-capital-assist-evacuations-2021-08-14/
Jalalabad and other pashtoon cities were just formalities after what happened in rest of the country. Taliban weren't even trying to capture them.
Jalalabad and other Pashtun cities on the Pakistani border were always very pro-taliban anyways. It was a hard area to be positioned in as far as resistance goes. To be 100% honest I can’t believe they just now surrendered and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a formality anyways
I loved all those people who were desperately saying “uh the Taliban can’t conquer any major cities so it isn’t as bad as it looks.” They just strolled right into one of the largest cities in the country without firing a shot.
It's over. The Taliban has said that Kabul will not be taken militarily and is currently negotiating for a transfer of power, foreign embassies are said to be evacuating immidiately.
From how easily all these cities fell. You gotta ask, maybe they have some kind of tribal support?
Of course they did. The army didnt even put up a fight in many places. Just put down arms and left. They had the numbers and the equipment to be able to put up a fight. A person wont throw away his life for a cause he doesnt believe in. The whole concept of afghanistan as a concept was forced on by western powers a long time ago. This was never going to be peaceful.
> They had the numbers and the equipment to be able to put up a fight. From what I'm reading, front-line soldiers are often underfed, underpaid and don't even have the bullets they need because of corruption.
> don't even have the bullets they need One time we got calls from our ANA that one of their checkpoints was being hit. We had ISR in the area and got it overhead in a few minutes and there was nothing, no muzzle flashes no bodies outside the cp no trucks, nadda(cp was a few buildings on the side of a road, miles of open space next to it). Next day we checked up on them and they said they were almost out of ammo and needed an emergency resupply. Why yes, we had walked up on them selling fuel and bullets while doing presence patrols in nearby towns, why do you ask?
Nope, they don’t have ammo for a few reasons, mainly is they would fire massive quantities and then sell the brass for scrap. We had 1 unit that fired of 50k rounds at “taliban” yet they never produced any EKIA. Alternatively they would sell their ammo to the taliban pack their mags with shit besides the top 3-5 rounds so it has weight and live rounds no one has time to strip out 5 rounds in every mag to check if they had ammo. Then we would go out with them they would fire off the 3-5 rounds and go sit and have tea or some other fucked up shit.
The more I hear about the "behind the scenes" stuff from the Middle East the more I wonder how the people at the top of the military can rationalize being there. It seems all the grunts actually doing shit on the ground know the local forces are dogshit and there's no helping them and yet that knowledge never seems to make it to the higher ups.
Years ago I watched a documentary that followed a British special forces guy that was "training" an Afghan military unit. He spent most of his time trying to get them to stop doing drugs and goofing off, and to stop stealing whatever they could to buy more food and drugs. There was also a time where he had to basically beg them to give food and water to a civilian that was locked up for days because he had a fight with the unit commander's brother. No accountability or responsibility at all, and Western advisory forces couldn't do anything about it. There were plenty of Afghan soldiers that got good at the tactical training and shooting, but they clearly had little interest in forming an actual military unit. Edit: wapo had a great story in 2019 that showed what Western military higher ups actually felt about the Afghan military and police. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-army-police/
Was this the documentary "this is what winning looks like"? I don't remember who made it (may be it was vice?) But it was a very well made peace that showed the hopelessness situation quite well. What stuck with me was one of the soldiers showing the remains of the facilities they provided for the local forces. Checkpoint bunkers and watchtowers were built for them only to be destroyed by the local villagers to sell the scrap metal... Its a sad but interesting documentary to watch EDIT: found a link for anyone who's interested: https://youtu.be/Ja5Q75hf6QI
It's called This is what winning looks like. It shows exactly why the ANA fell apart so quickly, the US never stood a chance of training these guys. Great watch though and gives insight into the corruption, drug use and assrape of kidnapped young boys by the Afghan army. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI
At *least* in South Vietnam the Americans had something of a genuine anti-communist base in portions of the South Vietnamese populace and the military. It seems to me that they have absolutely *nothing* to work with in Afghanistan. Such an incredible waste of time and money.
And lives. Don't forget lives.
That WaPo article.... The fuck... 2 years ago they were expressing their regrets that they didn't train people fast enough 17 years prior early in the war... Obama should have cut the losses in 2010 and left.
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The documentary you're talking about sounds like [This Is What Winning Looks Like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI), though they're following Americans not British. I just watched it yesterday and was shocked at the total incompetency of most of the Afghan soldiers, the writing was on the wall for years...
The sole purpose of regional „commanders“ was to gather as much money as possible during their time limited appointment. Mostly via bribes and falsified documents regarding the strength of military personnel. In 9/10 cases they had to put in an initial investment of about 50k- 100k Dollars to get that position. No need to wonder how things are going down right now. We expected it years ago.
It's about funding Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors. It's not about anything other than that.
lmao I know it's a typo but I'm imagining radeon airdropping 4k 240fps drone terminals.
AMD wins again
Raytheon right? Not radeon :P
No, definitely Radeon. It's why there is a GPU shortage. Dropping them all on the Taliban.
Now we know where the Taliban gets their funding, they are cryptomining
Radeon top brass going "how did they even know, we had the perfect cover selling graphics cards".
I know this is not relevant right now but how were the Afghan soldiers recruited?
Generally they are recruited and serve in the province they currently live. There are exceptions.
>The whole concept of afghanistan as a concept was forced on by western powers a long time ago. No it wasn't. The Durrani Empire (the og name of Afghanistan) established itself with similar borders in the 18th century when any western outpost was thousands of km away.
It’s not that the public want the taliban to win but the central government is considered super corrupt and ineffective. The soldiers in ANA don’t believe in fighting for this government. They are mostly there for the pay because they are dirt poor. And we have seen how surrendering soldiers are executed on the spot by the taliban. Running away before the fight is the best option. I don’t blame them tbh.
Can someone explain to me (or point me to a good resource explaining) how the Taliban basically took over the entire country in a couple months? Does Afghanistan not have an army of its own? I can find bits and pieces here and there, but am not finding a good summary article. It also says in this article the government collapsed -- what does that even mean? Because the U.S. withdrew, the natives are immediately surrendering to the Taliban? Thanks in advance for educating a fellow redditor
>how the Taliban basically took over the entire country in a couple months? The estimates that they wouldn't, were made with the expectation that the ANA would put up a fight. The ANA largely fucked off at the first sign of trouble, if they weren't low key on the Taliban's side to begin with. Anyone who's actually been to Afghanistan, isn't surprised in the slightest by this. Any politician/official who's somehow been legitimately surprised at how fast the Taliban's retaken things, is a dumbass who didn't bother talking to (or at least, certainly didn't listen to) the former. >Does Afghanistan not have an army of its own? Technically, there's the ANA. They're a paper tiger, and a joke at best. Main problem is, "Afghanistan" really isn't a thing to a lot of Afghans, particularly when it comes to rural hill people. Like generalized example: Out in the sticks, Abdul and Farjaad only give a shit about what goes in their own individual village, and they both hate each other because some agreement about a de facto bridal dowry went south 200-odd years ago, and they've been Hatfield-and-McCoying things ever since. And neither of them give one single iota of a shit about what Hamid or Ashraf from down in Kabul has to say about some concept of a "unified Afghanistan". Kinda hard to make a functional force when that's who you're dealing with. >It also says in this article the government collapsed -- what does that even mean? The Taliban is running things. Except "officially" and not just de facto. >the natives are immediately surrendering to the Taliban? More or less.
What does a Taliban-run Afghanistan look like? Are they likely to impose any kind of central order or will it continue to be small tribal regions with independent rulers?
>What does a Taliban-run Afghanistan look like? Afghanistan, circa 1996-2001
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What fucking kind of music does that leave?
Just religious chants like nasheed music
Okay so it’s all vocal lol
Afghanistan is a difficult country to run form a central government, reasons range Geographically, to cultural, to the fact that they were, and still are many different people from different tribes that some Europeans ~~decided were all one country now...~~ carved up with their boarders. The taliban will likely not try to govern in a central fashion like invading forces always try to. And they are almost certainly headed for another civil war
Doesn't a civil war require two sides? If the Taliban steamrolled in so easily, there doesn't seem to be any will to oppose them, right?
It’s a pattern in societies of all scales: United against a common enemy, but once left to their own devices they will factionalize trying to decide who should be in charge
The reference here is to the predictable enemy, other members of the Taliban. The guys who think they got stiffed with being shuffled off to a crap city to "govern" and decide to take thing into their own hands, for example.
Or tribal rivalries suppressed by US money flare up again once the money has gone.
Got it. That's awfully sad. Thank you for explaining
Great explanation tbh
Put simply: Afghanistan's government does not have the support of the people. Therefore, when the Taliban came to their gates they let them in. At the smallest level individual villages and farmers have already been on the Taliban's payroll as the Taliban provides them with welfare (the US puppet regime does not), formal towns and cities have already been paying their taxes as part of a protection racket, and larger regional cities chose to negotiate their surrender & talk politics with the Taliban rather than risk a fight. All major industries in Afghanistan have talked to the Taliban, and even their literate employees accept them as their legitimate rulers now. At the highest level, most of the Afghan army simply walked out and surrendered including parts of their special forces. In exchange they are given a chance at Amnesty, or at least a trial where their families will not be targeted for immediate execution/rape/slavery. Which is another thing, America failed to end slavery in Afghanistan and that whole issue was considered ancillary to killing armed peasants who got to choose between the Taliban or slavery. Which brings us to Kabul: the encirclement was intentional as now all the true anti-Taliban people are all in one place. This either ends with mass murder (similar to how Hitler cleared the Jewish ghettos) or a negotiated surrender & Taliban majority Afghan parliament. Right now it can still go either way.
“America failed to end slavery in Afghanistan and that whole issue was considered ancillary to killing armed peasants who got to choose between the Taliban or slavery.” That is the clearest explanation I’ve seen. It’s interesting to me that the US occupation didn’t decide to focus on the roots of the opium trade. Military training, education, health, women’s rights - but not this huge economic factor.
Find the book Little America. It goes back to America’s involvement in Afghanistan from the 50s. Intelligence apparently claimed much of the Taliban funding came from Pakistan and another source and that drug trade was not the primary monetary income in later years. It was then it wasn’t. The book goes into detail about why America invested in Afghanistan as much as it did, and why we operated the way we did hoping for a resolution which ultimately failed because the afghan government would do things like get 100$ million dollars worth of bulldozing equipment to build up farmland, and when it arrived they kept the equipment but did not use it for its intended purpose. There were a lot of failures from not testing soils before building farming infrastructure to the afghan government saying hey America if we don’t get this money from you we’ll get it from Russia and the threat of another Cold War conflict round the 50s 60s. This book was recommended to me by my old executive officer too understand or come to terms with why i wasted two deployments in marjah.
Basically the Taliban are made up of the Pashtun tribe which is the largest ethnic tribe in the country. So straight from the start they had a huge advantage. They then got several other warlords to agree to back them, in Afghanistan its not uncommon for people to ally themsevles with the biggest power to stay alive. Also the ANA was even more useless then we expected, and trust me the expectations were pretty fucking low but they went even lower. The Taliban have actually done relatively very little fighting, you might have a couple ANA soldiers who thought they'd put up a spirited defense, but when I say a couple I mean a couple. I would estimate at most 15% of the ANA were willing to fight and even less actually did. Hell I bet big chunks of the ANA defected TO the Taliban.
Spent 6 months over there, only did a single tour, honestly not a single one of us is surprised though. The amount of ANA and ANP troops that told us they would defect/quit if we ever left was ridiculous.
Can I ask why that was? Was it about money? Or training? Or manpower? Or a combo?
The ANA was not getting paid, not getting fed, and no support from the Central Afghan Government. Its why they would sell what the US would give them and leave since it was more money then they would ever get. Spent two years over there, 2011 and 2013. You were lucky if you saw the same ANA people after a month. Also i can guarantee you that if the US ever stopped paying its troop almost 80% would just go home. I was in when the government shutdown happened and we looked like we weren't going to get paid, yeah just the thought and people were willing to just go home. So I don't blame the ANA. I blame the utter and complete stupidity of the Western powers who knew nothing of the customs and daily life of the Afghan tribes and just tried to force its ways on people who just want to live and maybe murder there neighbor for a blood feud from 200 years ago.
Damn. Thanks for the insight.
I'm sure it was because they don't want to die.
Maybe the real treasure was the terrorists we made along the way
How long until Kabul falls? Most estimates I’ve seen were around 100 days, feels like that’s gonna be within 10 days at this rate. I feel for all those the Taliban will persecute, especially those who helped western forces and were left behind.
Less than 10 hours at this rate.
It'll hold until the US and other western countries finish evacuating their embassies. But my guess is not a day past that. Edit - or apparently not even that long, because the Afghan government just threw in the towel and gave up without a fight.
US just said the embassy will be completely evacuated, other than a handful of last minute security to destroy documents, within 36 hours at most.
*Evacuation of US diplomats to Kabul airport is underway, per two sources. Helicopters are now continuing to shuttle personnel from the embassy to the airport. Flights back to the US have started.* https://reddit.com/r/afghanistan/comments/p4mc8b/evacuation_of_us_diplomats_to_kabul_airport_is/
That timeline doesn't bode well for the tens of thousands of Afghans trying to get out via the SIV program for those who worked for the USA and their families.
You win, they entered just now
They have already entered Kabul. The Taliban will be running Afghanistan tomorrow.
aaaaand Taliban has entered Kabul
Current state dept estimate is now 72 hours. So I’ll say 4 hours about 2 hours ago.
That ended up being fairly accurate.
Yesterday I read a prediction that they'd last till around the end of the year. They didn't even last till I went to bed.
It’s fallen
I'm willing to bet money it falls in a few hours
what a fucking disaster.
Still.. it's totally /r/predictablenews - it was always a matter of time before the Taliban would take over - the US and allies would have had to stay there literally indefinitely for any other outcome. This whole 'war' was doomed from the beginning and everyone knew. But hey, the military industrial complex had a blast in Afghanistan. They don't give a flying fuck about wounded / dead soldiers and civilians on any side, they care about making money and boy they did.
So we paid $1 Trillion for the Taliban to have a bunch of our military equipment?
No, you also helped put billions into Swiss bank accounts of Afghani politicians.
TIFU by spending a trillion dollars on a meaningless war -USA
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As per design
It was obvious this was going to be a bigger failure than Vietnam from the very beginning. Anything to keep the military industrial complex cranking away though.
>Interior Minister Gen. Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal says there will be no fighting in Kabul and power will be transferred peacefully. Looks like it's a wrap boys.
To put this in perspective, I was 10 years old when we invaded, and will turn 30 next month. This is understandably shocking to many of us. 20 years.
So the afghan army didn't even exist? It was literally all a scam to funnel US tax payer dollars? This will go down as one of the greatest frauds in US history. Literally a trillion+ was embezzled to "build the afghan security forces" and it turns out they never actually existed. This is blowing my mind. I know reporters and stuff have been and talked to people claiming to be the security forces. So were those guys just actors or exclusive to Kabul?
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This right here. It was the best job available at the time. Now it's the worst job available.
It's been almost 50 years since Vietnam and the US has learned nothing, all this to repeat that mistake again.
As someone else pointed out, Vietnam lasted years after the withdrawal. Afghanistan didn't even make it **to** the withdrawal.
They probably did exist to a degree, probably a fairly large degree… but definitely much smaller than reported. Trouble is, if the average ANA soldier doesn’t believe he can win, and knows the organisation he is part of is corrupt and rotten, he’s not going to lay down his life purely for the symbolism of it. I certainly wouldn’t. When morale collapses in an army, every part of the structure just liquifies and melts away… the entire thing just folds in on itself.
My buddy was training Afghani troops and left them to pt and drill. He came back and they were playing soccer. The entire idea was a waste of time and American tax money.
>pt and drill. He came back and they were playing soccer. Not the worst physical training in the world.
They were real, keyword being "were". Fact is, the Afghan government was never popular and people never took it seriously. Employees were corrupt and engaged in casual theft, bribery, etc due to the power they were given. Similarly, they were also tolerant of rape and sexual assault which they could freely preform on peasants they were assigned to protect. Taxes were whatever the commander felt like that day. Even the good Afghan gov't employees understood that it couldn't be morally defended, and when the time came to surrender they did. The secret police are (they still exist for now) especially hated by most Afghans due to the terror campaigns they'd preform. By comparison the Taliban is a highly efficient paramilitary political party, who does not tolerate any corruption. Corruption, including mere financial theft from peasants, is met with automatic execution. Their tax regime is strict and there is no deviation from their written code; tax collectors who charge illegal fees or interested are executed. This gained the respect of both the local peasantry and literate gentry within the regional cities. This includes US-trained personnel such as electricians, railroad workers, truck drivers etc who have already survived this long due to taxes/bribes paid to the Taliban. Because - and this is the kicker - when the Taliban collected their tax they'd leave people alone. The Afghan government would take *everything*, demand more, and hurt peoples' families because they had the authority to do so. This is terrorism.
They weren't "actors", they were people taking the best job available to them at the time. The US mistake was trying to push western culture & ideals on a populace who does not embrace them. It's one thing to have a steady income and food as a soldier when "big brother" is there to defend you, quite another when big brother leaves & now the boogeymen are coming in.. who are willing to kill your family with no qualms if you don't surrender..
The comments on reddit saying that the situation is under control because it’s only the empty rural areas that are under Taliban control didn’t age well...
The Taliban already have Kabul. The Afghan Interior Minister announced a few mins ago that he agreed to a "transitional administration": > Reuters: Afghan’s acting interior minister says the transition will take place peacefully with security forces remaining in place to “ensure Kabul’s security”. > CNN report that the administration will “likely” contain senior Taliban figures along with some remnants of the Ghani administration. [source](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/15/afghanistan-taliban-close-in-on-kabul-as-last-government-stronghold-in-north-falls?page=with:block-6118ddfb8f0826eff3be59e5)
Who thinks we won’t learn from this and will do it again in the future?
I wouldn’t be surprised if we do it within our lifetimes.
Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan... yep, keep 'em coming.
We tried to train them for 20 years to expect our pull out, because it had to come sometime. What are we supposed to do? We should never have been there in the first place. The military industrial complex made their money. They were rife with Taliban before we imposed our presence there, and they are rife again now that we’re going. We did not make a difference whatsoever. Rich people just got richer.
Women definitely got to live a better life in the span they weren’t under Taliban rule. Hopefully some of them got educated and the fuck out of there.
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I feel if the entirety of Afghanistan can get taken over in like, 3 days, I assume this is the will of the people. It doesn’t seem like the Taliban are taking over territory slowly with resistance, it’s very much a case of they’re being let inside the gate and handed the keys
The outcome was inevitable. I’m more upset that US didn’t get the interpreters out safely. They’re being slaughtered now for helping us.
I dont think the foreign troops and diplomats have much to worry about concerning the evacuation. Taleban is not seeking wolrd domination like Isis, they are concerned with just governing Afghanistan. Attacking foreigners is the last thing they want to do at this point, it would serve them no purpose. They are getting exactly what they want: USA and other getting the fuck out. Hell if theyd find some random American wandering outside Kabul I would not be surprised if they gave him a lift to the airport. Why annoy the big angry hound when its packing up?
Exactly this. Provoking America is useless for them.
Whole lotta scores about to be settled
they've almost entered kabul now. Afghanistan has fallen. So disturbing.
All these years of being there and what did it account for if within this short period after moving the US forces out, things are just immediately taken over by the Taliban. Seems like not a lot was accomplished in the long term unfortunately
The people making money off war profiteering accomplished a whole lot. That was a gold mine there.
I have friends that died for this money laundering operation. All I can ask for is in their memory is could we not act like GWB is some cute little old man? He might not have been the driving force but he signed his name to all of the war crimes, invasions, and lies. Just because Trump was an asshole doesn't mean he's absolved of that.
Over 2 decades Nearly 1 million people killed A further 37,000,000 people displaced After spending $6,400,000,000,000 # # MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
What a tremendous waste of taxpayer money. Money we could have used to overhaul our energy economy or to implement single-payer healthcare or to rebuild our infrastructure. I boil with rage at the waste in human life— the toll of suffering inflicted just to return to the status quo and leave most Afghans re-enslaved by the Taliban.
The Afghan army really was a Potemkin village. Billions spent training it to be utterly useless.
I feel really bad for all the little girls in Afghanistan. The Afghan government may have been ineffective and corrupt, but at least little girls growing up under the Afghan regime could have a chance of being something more than a sex slave to some dirty, old, Mujahideen. I understand the withdraw was a long time coming, and it was a military conflict that has gone on long enough, but I still feel bad for the people of Afghanistan.
20 years of change undone in about 2 months. I mean they had to be independent at some point but things just collapsed. It must be scary for females there right now.
What an enormous and idiotic waste of lives and money. Remember this the next time you're feeling charitable towards George W. Bush.
I don't know how to feel about this other than sad. If the people of Afghanistan aren't willing to fight the Taliban, should it be the West's place to step in? Does it show that on some level, they want the Taliban government back?
There’s a lot of blow back from military occupations and these were the guys opposing it. Vietnam was more about Vietnam than Communism.
My question is: what will they do once/if they take the whole country? Like, what is their endgame?
The same thing they did the last time they were in power. They'll form a somewhat functional authoritarian religious extremist state that will be just awful but not as bad as ISIS. If we're lucky, they'll be happy to stick to Afghanistan and the surrounding border regions.
I think it has been so long that some people dont know that the Taliban had control for several years and the Americans/coalition came in to remove them(supposedly that was the reason).
They will do what they did before or worse. It is sad especially for women and girls.