The POTUS decides to be a chicken, pulls out of Afghanistan

[r16]

marshall Dostum was a taxi driver when the Soviets invaded ...

also in the news , internet is on fire or something after some Portugese guy in an American think tank says Kabil might fall in 72 hours .

 

[red_elk]

marshall Dostum was a taxi driver when the Soviets invaded ...

Yeah, he was 25 at a time. People are rarely been born marshalls, even in Afghanistan.

 

[innonimatu]

That's rather underplaying the historical role of foreign powers in fostering jihadism in Afghanistan, not the least that of the US... Prior to now Afghanistan has only been under Taliban fundamentalist rule for 5 years. The communist regime lasted for for 3 times as long, so it's wide off the mark to depict rule of religious zealots in country as some sort of historical inevitability. And even if the Taliban would have been just as strong 10 years from now, it would still have allowed a generation of girls to receive the benefits of education. Then again, the geopolitical situation might have changed and Pakistan might have ceased supporting the Taliban. Guess we'll never know.

One thing is obvious, one thing the right and left in the US can agree on is America First. Everyone else who has the deal with the fallout can suck it.

And aren't we far from the 1980s when Hollywood dutifully produced movies glorifying the mujahedin and depicting those afghan village women killing the foreign soldiers? Because universal education was bad if done by communists of course.
Only when the righteous empire pretends to do it is it good. Pretends because there are contractors to pay, and so long as they get paid not even a Potemkin village has to be built in the temporary satrapy.

Afghan government is corrupt and incompetent.
The US were busy with other botched military adventures in the Middle East

The thing is, they weren't really botched. Exercises in state-destroying, they were successes. Those states had formerly independent policies that caused trouble and were turned into failed states. Iraq trying to become too important at the expanse of ever-obliging Kuwait and SA. Libya trying to organize an "AU" and get other countries to dump the CFA. Afghanistan was actually the odd one out, one that wasn't causing actual geostrategic trouble. But something had to be done there after that piece of blowback into the US in 2001.
And so there's blowback of course, but the blowback does not reach the rulers does it? I mean, apart from when some walls of the pentagon got demolished, was that close? Afghanistan was the only "irrational" war, the others were planned and successful.
Another ongoing one, the occupation of a portion of Syria, seems to be more a favour to several local allies than anything else. And Yemen was a saudi/emirati project. The ones actually conducted by the US as outright wars achieved their goals, apart from Afghanistan where the last superpower it was trying to bite more than it could chew.
The empire is decaying but the decay doesn't happen overnight. The British from which the US took over took over from took some 30 years to move out of the region.

 

[r16]

for all its worth Rambo lll is a "good" movie ! Some teenager r16 and a classmate watching it once . Not leaving the hall , which was still possible in the late 1980s and me providing the political commentary , though it is obviously a failure on my part to name the Omar Sheriff character as Mesud , as ı still remember and he making sure we were counting the killed Russians correctly .

 

[Gelion]

This whole thing got me wondering, has there ever been a successful nation-building story after a US military invasion in the past 30-50 years? Germany and Japan are doing fine, but I would really like to find examples in the recent decades.

 

[Hygro]

This whole thing got me wondering, has there ever been a successful nation-building story after a US military invasion in the past 30-50 years? Germany and Japan are doing fine, but I would really like to find examples in the recent decades.

South Korea

but it was a slow ass start.

 

[red_elk]

State-destroying mission in Afghanistan failed due to the absence of state.

 

[Gelion]

South Korea

but it was a slow ass start.

South Korean war ended in 1953 and then the country went the same way as many of the other Asian "Tigers". I hoped for something more recent...

State-destroying mission in Afghanistan failed due to the absence of state.

"Don't say that until you know where I was aiming at" - Zack Alan, B5.

Which state?

 

[Farm Boy]

And aren't we far from the 1980s when Hollywood dutifully produced movies glorifying the mujahedin and depicting those afghan village women killing the foreign soldiers? Because universal education was bad if done by communists of course.
Only when the righteous empire pretends to do it is it good. Pretends because there are contractors to pay, and so long as they get paid not even a Potemkin village has to be built in the temporary satrapy.



The thing is, they weren't really botched. Exercises in state-destroying, they were successes. Those states had formerly independent policies that caused trouble and were turned into failed states. Iraq trying to become too important at the expanse of ever-obliging Kuwait and SA. Libya trying to organize an "AU" and get other countries to dump the CFA. Afghanistan was actually the odd one out, one that wasn't causing actual geostrategic trouble. But something had to be done there after that piece of blowback into the US in 2001.
And so there's blowback of course, but the blowback does not reach the rulers does it? I mean, apart from when some walls of the pentagon got demolished, was that close? Afghanistan was the only "irrational" war, the others were planned and successful.
Another ongoing one, the occupation of a portion of Syria, seems to be more a favour to several local allies than anything else. And Yemen was a saudi/emirati project. The ones actually conducted by the US as outright wars achieved their goals, apart from Afghanistan where the last superpower it was trying to bite more than it could chew.
The empire is decaying but the decay doesn't happen overnight. The British from which the US took over took over from took some 30 years to move out of the region.

<best melodrama voice> You must pay the rent! Eheheheheheeeee!

 

[Imaus]

South Korean war ended in 1953 and then the country went the same way as many of the other Asian "Tigers". I hoped for something more recent...


"Don't say that until you know where I was aiming at" - Zack Alan, B5.

Which state?

Our whole thing in South Korea was 'guard the border, you fudgs sort it out internally' however, was it not?

 

[amadeus]

Germany, Japan, and Korea all had levels of industrial development prior to U.S. occupation. In the latter case, much of the remaining industry after WWII was destroyed in the Korean War in 1950.

I’d have to read up more on U.S. aid to Korea after 1953, but before the wars (1940 data) Japan had left an industrial sector that generated 40% of the colony’s economic output. This is not praise for their colonial system, just observing that Korea did have at one time some industrial base.

I don’t think Afghanistan really ever had anything like that, so it’s not really re-building anything.

 

[caketastydelish]

Unless I am misunderstanding the situation, it seems like a lot of the Afghanstan's army (fighting against the Taliban) isn't actually fighting and just surrendering. If this is the case, that is pretty disappointing. Cowards.

 

[Zardnaar]

Germany, Japan, and Korea all had levels of industrial development prior to U.S. occupation. In the latter case, much of the remaining industry after WWII was destroyed in the Korean War in 1950.

I’d have to read up more on U.S. aid to Korea after 1953, but before the wars (1940 data) Japan had left an industrial sector that generated 40% of the colony’s economic output. This is not praise for their colonial system, just observing that Korea did have at one time some industrial base.

I don’t think Afghanistan really ever had anything like that, so it’s not really re-building anything.

I covered this in history at uni. Basically Japan built electrical grid and post WW2 US military spending benefitted South Korea.

Manchukuo produced more steel than Japan 1940 iirc and China inherited that.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unless I am misunderstanding the situation, it seems like a lot of the Afghanstan's army (fighting against the Taliban) isn't actually fighting and just surrendering. If this is the case, that is pretty disappointing. Cowards.

Why fight for Kabul puppet government?

Taliban 2.0 seems more multi ethnic, less harsh and less corrupt. They've already over run the old northern alliance strongholds.

Derp.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58219169

 

[caketastydelish]

I decisively disagree that it is a puppet government. Honestly, that assertion offends me.

 

[Zardnaar]

I decisively disagree that it is a puppet government. Honestly, that assertion offends me.

Installed, backed and funded by a foreign power after an invasion?

They didn't even get consulted by the US in talks with the Taliban.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Afghani government is only in charge of an area until the Taliban ask them to step aside. How benign this new version ends up being is not yet known. I do not think they want to tangle with the returning US Marines so I expect they will wait before waltzing into Kabul.

 

[Drakle]

And aren't we far from the 1980s when Hollywood dutifully produced movies glorifying the mujahedin and depicting those afghan village women killing the foreign soldiers? Because universal education was bad if done by communists of course.
Only when the righteous empire pretends to do it is it good. Pretends because there are contractors to pay, and so long as they get paid not even a Potemkin village has to be built in the temporary satrapy.

The US never carried out anything equivalent to the raw destruction the Soviet Union unleashed under Afghanistan.

Unless I am misunderstanding the situation, it seems like a lot of the Afghanstan's army (fighting against the Taliban) isn't actually fighting and just surrendering. If this is the case, that is pretty disappointing. Cowards.

Many of these troops haven't been paid in months, resupply is spotty so limited ammo, and distributed in penny packets all over Afghanistan, and suddenly surrounded, by a much larger Taliban force, because the government's forces are all far smaller than they should be, because of Ghost Soldiers. Why should they fight and die under those conditions, particularly when the end of the war is clear? The preceding twenty years have already been deadly for the Afghan forces, the ones trained in the first phase of the US occupation, are statistically almost certainly dead or incapable. The common Afghan troops are now the third rate troops, with the remaining motivated and quality troops, plucked out for the Commando Fire Teams. Who are being worn down by constant redeployments to hot spots at a constant tempo.

Are you going to go over there and fight the Taliban?

 

[Samson]

Taliban seizes Afghanistan’s Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif, effectively leaves Kabul as the last major urban area under government control.

The fall on Saturday of Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s fourth-largest city, which Afghan forces and two powerful former strongmen had pledged to defend, hands the Taliban control over all of northern Afghanistan, confining the Western-backed government to the centre and east.

The Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan’s Jalalabad without a fight, according to officials and a resident. Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters there were no clashes in the city “because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban”. “Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives,” the official added.
​

Unless I am misunderstanding the situation, it seems like a lot of the Afghanstan's army (fighting against the Taliban) isn't actually fighting and just surrendering. If this is the case, that is pretty disappointing. Cowards.

Would you be willing for your parents/children to be caught up in a war zone so that you could make a meaningless stand?

 

[Samson]

Taliban enter Kabul from all sides

The Taliban have entered the Afghan capital Kabul from all sides, the Afghan interior ministry said on Sunday.
Sirens could be heard along with sporadic gunfire. Multiple helicopters were flying above the city centre and were dropping flares, Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Bellis reported from Kabul.

Panicked workers fled government offices. Thousands of civilians now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul itself, fearing the future.
After its lightning advance on the capital, the armed group ordered its fighters to refrain violence, allow safe passage to anyone seeking to leave and request women to head to protected areas, said a Taliban leader in Doha.

Helicopters were seen landing at the US embassy on Sunday. There are reports that they are shuttling people to the airport, though there are reports of gunfire at the airport.
Wisps of smoke could be seen near the embassy's roof as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents, according to two American military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the situation.

The BBC's Yalda Hakim, who has reported extensively from Afghanistan for more than a decade, says the militants are not encountering a lot of resistance in the Afghan capital: "There seems to be no battle for Kabul".
​

Taliban say they have not entered Kabul city, are looking for negotiated handover of the city. Reports suggest that they have explicitly ordered their fighters to not enter city.

​