Re: Afghanistan
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:16 pm
We'll see...Nonc Hilaire wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:22 pm Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
Another day in the Universe
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https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=315
We'll see...Nonc Hilaire wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:22 pm Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
I agreee with Nonc, its the best outcome no matter what happens.Doc wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:16 pmWe'll see...Nonc Hilaire wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:22 pm Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
We missed the best-case scenario window when we turned down the Taliban's surrender in 2002 or 2003 which would've reorganized the totem pole with the Taliban being lowered in the pecking order and a formal agreement to keep training grounds out of Afghani territory.noddy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:12 amI agreee with Nonc, its the best outcome no matter what happens.Doc wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:16 pmWe'll see...Nonc Hilaire wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:22 pm Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
partisan sniping on the horror stories which will happen are irrelevant, they were happening already.
after 20 years and trillions of dollars of corruption money going in all directions that nothing has changed in Afghanistan, and it has reverted quickly back to what it actually is, what else can happen ?
let them slowly fix it, its nobody elses job
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/worl ... -boys.html
the original goal of not letting it be a launch pad for islamaic terrorism via Al Queda is an absurdity against the spread of ISIS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory ... amic_State
As I said "We'll See"noddy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:12 amI agreee with Nonc, its the best outcome no matter what happens.Doc wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:16 pmWe'll see...Nonc Hilaire wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:22 pm Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
partisan sniping on the horror stories which will happen are irrelevant, they were happening already.
after 20 years and trillions of dollars of corruption money going in all directions that nothing has changed in Afghanistan, and it has reverted quickly back to what it actually is, what else can happen ?
let them slowly fix it, its nobody elses job
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/worl ... -boys.html
the original goal of not letting it be a launch pad for islamaic terrorism via Al Queda is an absurdity against the spread of ISIS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory ... amic_State
China already has the mining rights and if China wants a pipeline through Afghanistan, they are going to get one anyway. And on that front, good luck in saddling debt on to a people who don't believe in it.
if the Afghans trust Taliban/China more than America do you think bombing them more is going to fix it ?
We will have a good idea in 7 to 10 days on how the Taliban will behave this time around. We will know in a couple of years how much the Taliban sold out their country to the CCP
Honestly I never believed "Afghanistan" was "winnable"(whatever that was supposed to mean) Militarily. When I saw the feminists get hold of the idea that they were going to insist on western values being forced upon that country, I figured it was not going to end well whenever it did end.noddy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 1:37 pm As I understand Pakistan also has the tribal Pashtuns, which is the base for the Taliban but the control they had was always overstated.
They could exploit mutual dislikes by funding them and pushing them in directions but they had no real control over it - they had their own war against them just recently, the main difference being that Pakistan has a much bigger urban area and more sub cultures going on than just the mountain men,
if the Afghans trust Taliban/China more than America do you think bombing them more is going to fix it ?
We will have a good idea in 7 to 10 days on how the Taliban will behave this time around. We will know in a couple of years how much the Taliban sold out their country to the CCP
The point is WRT feminism is that without food security Afghanistan is always going to be a man's world.‘He Showed Us Life’: Japanese Doctor Who Brought Water to Afghans Is Killed
Tetsu Nakamura, 73, arrived in Afghanistan in the 1980s to treat leprosy. But he changed many more lives with the canal-building techniques he brought from his native Japan.
Substack - Tracey | “A Big Money Funneling Operation” — Afghanistan Vet Reflects On Withdrawal Of US ForcesLast month, the independent journalist Michael Tracey, writing at Substack, interviewed a U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan. The former soldier, whose job was to work in training programs for the Afghan police and also participated in training briefings for the Afghan military, described in detail why the program to train Afghan security forces was such an obvious failure and even a farce. “I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment,” he said. In sum, “as far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big money funneling operation”: an endless money pit for U.S. security contractors and Afghan warlords, all of whom knew that no real progress was being made, just sucking up as much U.S. taxpayer money as they could before the inevitable withdraw and takeover by the Taliban.
Apparently the Afghan Army fell apart because Ghani was not paying the soldiers. Instead he was keeping the money for himself. Which is why Trump wanted the Troops out of Afghanistan by May 1st.Typhoon wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 7:43 pm Substack - Greenwald | The U.S. Government Lied For Two Decades About Afghanistan
Substack - Tracey | “A Big Money Funneling Operation” — Afghanistan Vet Reflects On Withdrawal Of US ForcesLast month, the independent journalist Michael Tracey, writing at Substack, interviewed a U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan. The former soldier, whose job was to work in training programs for the Afghan police and also participated in training briefings for the Afghan military, described in detail why the program to train Afghan security forces was such an obvious failure and even a farce. “I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment,” he said. In sum, “as far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big money funneling operation”: an endless money pit for U.S. security contractors and Afghan warlords, all of whom knew that no real progress was being made, just sucking up as much U.S. taxpayer money as they could before the inevitable withdraw and takeover by the Taliban.
As for the US troops killed or wounded during the last 20 years my guess is that the majority were from the working classes whom the chattering classes, cheerleading the occupation + war in Afghanistan, hold in contempt.
This bit of fantasy sums up the US political-military-industrial complex strategy
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I think that understates the pointlessness of the exercise.
Ive read in some places the Taliban acknowledge the fact that the urbanites arent going to join them, so they will attempt to be slightly more multicultural than last time.NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:12 am We missed the best-case scenario window when we turned down the Taliban's surrender in 2002 or 2003 which would've reorganized the totem pole with the Taliban being lowered in the pecking order and a formal agreement to keep training grounds out of Afghani territory.
Looking back, we essentially ended up with that arrangement, albeit informally, under the Karzai government.
The Durrani tribe policed things to keep the training camps to a minimum and in turn, they cooperated with the Taliban as just another one of the many tribes and powers in the land.
Exactly. When Tetsu Nakamura went to Afghanistan as a doctor he saw that being a doctor was not helping that much because everyone was malnourished. The reason for that was there was not enough water for people to grow their own food.noddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 2:18 amI think that understates the pointlessness of the exercise.
throwing money at institutions doesnt "fix" the underclass problems in our countries, so why would people even think it would work in foreign cultures.
doubly so when the Pashtuns and their ilk are far less down the middle class rabbit hole in the first place - they properly are sovereign nations of family based tribes with zero interest in becoming office workers.
Currently there are reports that the Taliban are now going door to door looking for people that worked for the US government and executing those they find.
Ive read in some places the Taliban acknowledge the fact that the urbanites arent going to join them, so they will attempt to be slightly more multicultural than last time.NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:12 am We missed the best-case scenario window when we turned down the Taliban's surrender in 2002 or 2003 which would've reorganized the totem pole with the Taliban being lowered in the pecking order and a formal agreement to keep training grounds out of Afghani territory.
Looking back, we essentially ended up with that arrangement, albeit informally, under the Karzai government.
The Durrani tribe policed things to keep the training camps to a minimum and in turn, they cooperated with the Taliban as just another one of the many tribes and powers in the land.
once the initial chaos settles down, it will be curious to see how much thats actually true, probably not very much.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1640974/war-i ... rips-kabul
same as Trump did nothing when he started the pullout, same as my government did nothing when they announced theirs.
It is partisan as the Trump arrangement with the Taliban was to be out by a date in May with the condition of no hostilities towards the Afghani government before the agreed upon date. Any hostile takeover would start a bombing/drone campaign.noddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:04 amsame as Trump did nothing when he started the pullout, same as my government did nothing when they announced theirs.
this isnt partisan, why pretend it is.
nobody cares if a few hundred Afghans get murdered for helping us, the backlash against another round of refugees with potential terrorists amongst them is far more of a political concern.
dont kid yourself the republicans would be on the right side of that particular panic.
Well, I don't want to push it too far-- like I said yesterday, anybody in charge was going to take it on the chin and it would've been a clusterf* event regardless.noddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 11:07 am I spose I cant argue with what might have happened.
cant also say I really think it would have played out that different - our current Prime Minister is an evangelical right wing fellow, who was a Trump fan and follows in lock step with his American millitary advisers.
if he remembered to evacuate the Australians all in good time but forgot to do likewise with their Afghan assistants, my suspicions are what they are.
There are 30,000 Afghans that worked for the US government. So far 2,000 have been allowed to leave. Many that were given visas to go elsewhere are stuck in their homes and afraid to leave them to go to the airport even before flights were suspended.noddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:04 amsame as Trump did nothing when he started the pullout, same as my government did nothing when they announced theirs.
this isnt partisan, why pretend it is.
nobody cares if a few hundred Afghans get murdered for helping us, the backlash against another round of refugees with potential terrorists amongst them is far more of a political concern.
dont kid yourself the republicans would be on the right side of that particular panic.
Mike Pompeo Outlines How Trump Admin Planned to Handle Afghanistan, Taliban
Darragh Roche 1 hr ago
17 Comments
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Reports: US Air Force plane carries over 600 people out of Afghanistan
Afghanistan updates: Clearing of civilians from Kabul runway continues
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the Trump administration had a better approach to dealing with Taliban "butchers" and their plan would have led to a more successful withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mike Pompeo wearing a suit and tie: Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 27, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Pompeo said on Monday that the Trump administration would have handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan more successfully. © Joe Raedle/Getty Images Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 27, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Pompeo said on Monday that the Trump administration would have handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan more successfully.
Pompeo spoke to the Fox Business Network on Monday about U.S. troop drawdown from the country following chaotic scenes in Kabul as the Taliban took the capital city on Sunday.
President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal from Afghanistan in an address on Monday and criticized the Afghan military for the Taliban's rapid advance through the country.
Pompeo spoke to Fox Business host David Asman about Biden's speech and said the president "blamed everyone but himself."
"The tragedy you see unfolding, the videos you see, those things didn't have to be," he said.
Pompeo argued that the Trump administration had kept the country stable through a "deterrence" model and went on to stress the need to evacuate personnel from Afghanistan.
He also criticized Biden's decision to send 5,000 troops to the country despite earlier withdrawing forces, a sentiment he repeated on Twitter.
Asman asked Pompeo about the Trump administration's role in planning for the troop drawdown.
"Obviously, you're defensive about what happened during the Trump administration but how would you have handled things differently?" Asman said.
"No, I'm not defensive at all," Pompeo said. "I know precisely how we handle it and I know that we drew down 12,500 people and didn't have a single American killed by these very same Taliban butchers."
Sending more than 5000 troops back in AFTER you withdrew a couple thousand of them is proof that you are disconnected from the reality on the ground and aren't serious about protecting Americans.
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) August 16, 2021
"We had a model where we'd made clear what our red lines were," Pompeo went on. "We'd made clear the things we were prepared to do to defend them. We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal."
"We would have demanded that the Taliban actually deliver on the conditions that we laid out in the agreement - including the agreement to engage in meaningful power sharing agreement - something that we struggled to get them to do but made clear it was going to be a requirement before we completed our requirement to fully withdraw," he said.
Pompeo went on: "We would have gotten those conditions right. We would have held the Taliban to those limits and we would have been able to prevent, in all likelihood, precisely what you're seeing unfold today in Afghanistan."
The former secretary of state then said that members of the military who served in Afghanistan, either directly or in support roles, "should be proud of the work that they did."
President Biden delivered an 18-minute speech on Monday defending the withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he wouldn't "mislead the American people by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference."
Biden specifically mentioned the Trump administration's plans to withdraw from Afghanistan: "When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, just a little over three months after I took office."
"There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1," Biden went on.
"There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan and lurching into the third decade of conflict."
Biden defended pushing ahead with the withdrawal but also offered criticism of the U.S.-trained Afghan army.
"We gave them every tool they could need," Biden went on. "We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide is the will to fight for that."
Newsweek has asked the White House for comment.
noddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 2:18 am
Ive read in some places the Taliban acknowledge the fact that the urbanites arent going to join them, so they will attempt to be slightly more multicultural than last time.
once the initial chaos settles down, it will be curious to see how much thats actually true, probably not very much.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1640974/war-i ... rips-kabul
I think this is really key.