The War in Afghanistan

[Whitestrake Pelinal]

Since when have conquers cared about what the conquered allowed?

Conquering empires often cared greatly about how the locals did things, ex: British Empire. They might stomp out a few practices here or there, because they despised them or because it was useful to their interests, but mostly they looked for ways to get what they wanted with a minimum of unrest. So much easier that way, so much better results.

Savages who wanted blood, loot, and pussy had no such needs. Between those two, GAE seems to be closer to the latter than the former. GAE prioritized globohomo propaganda at the expense of more far-sighted goals.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I domt think you understand how much maintenance and maintaining the Blackhawks take.

Dude, just stop. You know I've usually got your back in these kinds of discussions but this is just embarrassing. We were assured that the aircraft were all disabled by the Pentagon, and now they're flying a few days later. Not just maintenance, active sabotage by the US to the best of their abilities, and not just by stuffed shirts reporting to the White House but actual frontline troops on the ground. Yet the Afghanis are still flying them within a few days. There're only two possibilities:

1: The Taliban are mechanical wizards straight out of Girl Genius.
2: The aircraft require far less work to get running than the US Military thinks.

There's really not a good way to spin things when the Pentagon was caught out being this wrong this fast.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Dude, just stop. You know I've usually got your back in these kinds of discussions but this is just embarrassing. We were assured that the aircraft were all disabled by the Pentagon, and now they're flying a few days later. Not just maintenance, active sabotage by the US to the best of their abilities, and not just by stuffed shirts reporting to the White House but actual frontline troops on the ground. Yet the Afghanis are still flying them within a few days. There're only two possibilities:

1: The Taliban are mechanical wizards straight out of Girl Genius.
2: The aircraft require far less work to get running than the US Military thinks.

There's really not a good way to spin things when the Pentagon was caught out being this wrong this fast.

There is a 3rd possibility and it's probably the worst when you think about it.

A large number of ANAF planes and choppers did manage to escape to neighboring countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The guy flying them were obviously qualified ANAF pilots given that they landed them successfully at the airports. There are pictures of the planes.

But what about the ground crew? They were obviously left behind.

So what do they do in that situation? Those ground crew and maintenance personnel that were left behind?

Work for the Taliban, of course. Because they need them to operate and maintain these things as much as they need the Taliban to keep them safe and pay them wages.

Or even worse, they straight up defected during the fighting and opened up the airfield gates to the Taliban.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Dude, just stop. You know I've usually got your back in these kinds of discussions but this is just embarrassing. We were assured that the aircraft were all disabled by the Pentagon, and now they're flying a few days later. Not just maintenance, active sabotage by the US to the best of their abilities, and not just by stuffed shirts reporting to the White House but actual frontline troops on the ground. Yet the Afghanis are still flying them within a few days. There're only two possibilities:

Source for that the US was (failing) to sabotage ANA Blackhawks?

Because it seems like a conflation of two things.

First the capture of ANA Blackhawk helicopters and the Taliban being able to make a flight with one or a couple of them

And the Memology101 videos where the Pentagon Talking Head is referring to that video showing the Taliban walking into the Hamid Karzai Airport with the hangar that had a few Sea Knights and/or Chinooks that are allegedly inoperable.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Afghan opinion aside, was there ever any significant number of Americans (and other Westerners) who wanted to keep fighting, and for the cause of turning A-stan into an outpost of liberal values at that? IIRC public opposition to the war kept spiking even (especially!) after Bin Laden was killed with both conservatives and liberals, but I'm legitimately curious as to whether literally anyone enlisted (or cheered enlistees they knew) because they wanted to spread 'freedom' (as defined by the average bourgeois hipster in NYC or LA or SF) to the Afghan people these past 20 years. The people I know who joined up with the CAF after 9/11 definitely didn't - for them it was a combination of solidarity with the Americans and wanting to fight terrorists before they got anywhere near home, not to partake in a $2 trillion social experiment.

It's obvious that the vast, vast majority of Afghans didn't want 21st century progressive mores forced upon them and were actively hostile to it, but was that something any Westerners (preferably people who aren't part of some liberal globalist NGO, working for Raytheon or another big military manufacturing company, related to some powerful politicians with fingers in the Afghan pie, or some combination of the above) wanted to involve themselves with any more than said Afghans did? How many people heard 'making Afghanistan a safe space for the female & LGBTQ+ POCs living there' and unironically thought 'sure sounds like a good use of my tax dollars'?

 

[Zachowon]

We did not have that problem with Vietnamese women making our soldiers into communists.
Also you seem to defend everything the army does the classes seem stupid it’s just whatever is in charge being pushed down currently that is woke stuff.

People have gone against the US military because family had convinced people to spy for them.
Then you have Bo Bergdal who defected to the Taliban, only to be traded for one of the current leaders of it.
The diffrencr between Vietnam and A-stan, was for the fact we were allowed out and about in the south on pass. In A-stan, it isn't as easy

Dude, just stop. You know I've usually got your back in these kinds of discussions but this is just embarrassing. We were assured that the aircraft were all disabled by the Pentagon, and now they're flying a few days later. Not just maintenance, active sabotage by the US to the best of their abilities, and not just by stuffed shirts reporting to the White House but actual frontline troops on the ground. Yet the Afghanis are still flying them within a few days. There're only two possibilities:

1: The Taliban are mechanical wizards straight out of Girl Genius.
2: The aircraft require far less work to get running than the US Military thinks.

There's really not a good way to spin things when the Pentagon was caught out being this wrong this fast.

There is a lot to the aircraft the Army uses..
Blackhawks often have to be maintained after every flight or certain parts will fail on a flight..
If the Taliban get some ex ANA mechanics, then they are fine..
But everything they have,, the US Army has a list of them constantly getting repaired or maintained because of how much work needs to be dine to be effective.
If one of the Taliban Blackhawks was to have a major hydrolic failure because no proper maintenance, one less they have.

 

[Bassoe]

In other words, the only way we'll get an actual answer is to wait a few years and see if the Taliban's new Air Force is still flying.

 

[King Arts]

People have gone against the US military because family had convinced people to spy for them.
Then you have Bo Bergdal who defected to the Taliban, only to be traded for one of the current leaders of it.
The diffrencr between Vietnam and A-stan, was for the fact we were allowed out and about in the south on pass. In A-stan, it isn't as easy

Why did we make a trade for Berghdal if he was a traitor?

Anyway why were there passes for Vietnam where we had to worry about the Viet Kong but not in Afghanistan or Iraq?

 

[Husky_Khan]

Why did we make a trade for Berghdal if he was a traitor?

Anyway why were there passes for Vietnam where we had to worry about the Viet Kong but not in Afghanistan or Iraq?

Going out and about in Afghanistan and Iraq even in the urban centers was always more dangerous then wandering about a major South Vietnamese City. The risk for abduction and assassination was too high. Keep in mind, early in both the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns Americans did try the whole milling about the town without being in battle rattle, the British even did so in Basra but eventually the security situation deteriorated so much that even that even going out in soft cover was a risk.

There were Viet Cong terrorists and bombings or whatever but never on the scale that there was in Afghanistan and especially Iraq. The amount of taboo with mingling with the locals in Afghanistan as opposed to South Vietnam is probably just a bonus in not getting passes to go out and get assassinated or kidnapped.

 

[King Arts]

Going out and about in Afghanistan and Iraq even in the urban centers was always more dangerous then wandering about a major South Vietnamese City. The risk for abduction and assassination was too high. Keep in mind, early in both the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns Americans did try the whole milling about the town without being in battle rattle, the British even did so in Basra but eventually the security situation deteriorated so much that even that even going out in soft cover was a risk.

There were Viet Cong terrorists and bombings or whatever but never on the scale that there was in Afghanistan and especially Iraq. The amount of taboo with mingling with the locals in Afghanistan as opposed to South Vietnam is probably just a bonus in not getting passes to go out and get assassinated or kidnapped.

Maybe if we used ww1 roes and punished assassins with reprisals that would have made it safer?

 

[Sobek]

It might. But that would never be allowed by the people back home or the international community.

Fact is the Coalition was NEVER going to succeed at making liberal democracies out of these places unless they were willing to do what Hadrian did in Judea. They went in thinking they could do what was done in Germany and Japan after WW2 but those places had wildly different cultures and had recent democratic experiments that had gone decently until upsets happened.

With Afghanistan and Iraq? Nah. Wasn't going to happen. We might, MIGHT have gotten away with making Afghanistan a islamic kingdom under the old King with a conservative constitution, maybe, but when we started trying to emancipate their women and introduce western ideological pushes that chance was gone.

 

[Zachowon]

Maybe if we used ww1 roes and punished assassins with reprisals that would have made it safer?

Suicide bombings and mortar attacks is what would happen, because it isn't always Americans that caused issues

 

[King Arts]

Suicide bombings and mortar attacks is what would happen, because it isn't always Americans that caused issues

No I meant that for every American assasinated while on pass 100 random Afghans Males between the ages of 14 and 60 would be executed that was how anti partisan operations were done in the old days.

 

[Bassoe]

No I meant that for every American assasinated while on pass 100 random Afghans Males between the ages of 14 and 60 would be executed that was how anti partisan operations were done in the old days.

Dude, prior invaders of Afghanistan have included the Soviet Union and Genghis fucking Khan. If 'commit war crimes until you win' was the secret, we'd have noticed because of the region being communist or mongolian to this day.

 

[Zachowon]

No I meant that for every American assasinated while on pass 100 random Afghans Males between the ages of 14 and 60 would be executed that was how anti partisan operations were done in the old days.

Uh.
That just makes the people hate you more.

 

[Cherico]

Uh.
That just makes the people hate you more.

My issue is what was our goal in afganistan?

If the goal is to punish the country for 911 in the most brutal manner possible then killing lots of people would do the trick. If the goal is simply to keep them from fucking up again then killing people like that is counter productive. Ultimently I don't think there was a coherent plan to create a functioning government, and even if there was the leadership in washington was too delusional to actually make it work.

There were too many conflicting goals and agendas and none of it based on what could realistically happen on the ground. Realistically our best option was to go in capture Bin Ladin kill him and his leadership and leave, that was more difficult then expected and we fucked up quite a bit.

 

[Bassoe]

My issue is what was our goal in afganistan?

Transfer money from US taxpayers to military/industry megacorps. Justify domestic authoritarianism in the name of wartime emergency. Live fire testing for fighting guerrilla insurgencies for in a couple decades when automation eats the whole job market.

 

[Zachowon]

My issue is what was our goal in afganistan?

If the goal is to punish the country for 911 in the most brutal manner possible then killing lots of people would do the trick. If the goal is simply to keep them from fucking up again then killing people like that is counter productive. Ultimently I don't think there was a coherent plan to create a functioning government, and even if there was the leadership in washington was too delusional to actually make it work.

There were too many conflicting goals and agendas and none of it based on what could realistically happen on the ground. Realistically our best option was to go in capture Bin Ladin kill him and his leadership and leave, that was more difficult then expected and we fucked up quite a bit.

We beat the shit out of them when we got there. We should have left in 11

 

[PsihoKekec]

But what about the ground crew? They were obviously left behind.

Most of the ground crews were foreign contractors, who were supposedly evacuated ahead of Taliban advance. One of the reasons why Pentagon wanted to delay the pullout, was that according to the deal, contractors should be pulled out Afghanistan as well and ANAF simply couldn't operate without them, as the trained Afghani support staff only cowered a fraction of their maintenance needs.

 

[Marduk]

My issue is what was our goal in afganistan?

If the goal is to punish the country for 911 in the most brutal manner possible then killing lots of people would do the trick. If the goal is simply to keep them from fucking up again then killing people like that is counter productive. Ultimently I don't think there was a coherent plan to create a functioning government, and even if there was the leadership in washington was too delusional to actually make it work.

There were too many conflicting goals and agendas and none of it based on what could realistically happen on the ground. Realistically our best option was to go in capture Bin Ladin kill him and his leadership and leave, that was more difficult then expected and we fucked up quite a bit.

That still doesn't even tough an important half of the story. The Taliban exist because Pakistan needs islamic theocrats in charge of their western neighbor, as nothing else makes them feel safe on that border when it comes to shitstorms vs India. Especially when the most likely other alternative was Pashtun nationalists who don't like the Durand Line much and would want a piece of Pakistan that happens to be populated with Pashtuns who being fellow Pashtuns may actually be receptive to the concept of Pashtostan. Obviously Pakistan doesn't like this idea at all. And so they fulfill their need with the Taliban, because as fellow islamists they don't care where the formal border is, they are friends anyway, and they share hatred of infidels like India.

To make this more of a mess, USA was relying mostly on Pakistan as "ally" for its logistical route to Afghanistan, cutting which Pakistan would threaten for all sorts of convenient reasons.
This is the main reasons why Pakistan could provide a R&R area and training facilities for Taliban, while also hiding OBL himself, yet despite all that didn't feel much in the way of consequences from USA.

As such, whatever happens in Afghanistan, Pakistan can be assumed to have considerable influence in that (the Taliban are not the most obedient proxy force in the world, but they are a proxy). If they didn't want the Taliban to exist, it wouldn't exist since at least a decade.
If not for Pakistan, US forces would have effectively attritioned the Taliban away. AKA just kill so many of them they don't form a functional force again. But when the Taliban were having bad days like this, they would just retreat over Pakistani border, reinforce from Pakistan's friendly madrassas, and be mostly safe while waiting out the worst because airstrikes over Pakistan were limited by their permissions.

As such, Afghanistan's government had no chance. It was stuck fighting a proxy war against Pakistan, no ifs and buts, while being reliant on allies who couldn't even say it out loud due to how much of a political mess it would be.