Poll of the Day > Thing that people warned would happen in Afghanistan happened in Afghanistan

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/taliban-starts-invasion-of-kabul-from-all-sides-676751

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-bagram-e1ed33fe0c665ee67ba132c51b8e32a5

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghanistans embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The Taliban entered the capital early Sunday and an official in the militant group said it would soon announce the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace a return rich in symbolism to the name of the country under the Taliban government ousted by U.S.-led forces after the 9/11 attacks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Remember how the intelligence community said the country could fall in as little as six months after the complete US withdrawal? It looks like it's happened even before the withdrawal finished (which, tbh, is kinda to be expected when you have a president schedule the complete withdrawal to conclude on 9/11, a symbolic gesture that the US failed)

Airlines are already stopping to fly over the country:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/british-airways-not-currently-using-afghanistan-airspace-2021-08-15/

And so the Biden administration is finally admitting *maybe* it was a bad idea to ignore the intelligence community and just shoot from his hip (you know, the thing he accused Trump of doing)

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/15/politics/biden-administration-taliban-kabul-afghanistan/index.html

More reading:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-afghanistan-exit-raises-questions-about-his-foreign-policy-record-11629035042

In general, it was a slow-moving trainwreck everybody saw coming but the Biden administration insisted on looking the other way.

---

should have kept out before and we should keep out now

we've literally just left a mess that we created, going back in to make more of a mess isn't going to solve the mess we created in the first place

the west needs to cut its losses and gtfo and next time mind ya bzns

---

We still have a presence in nations we fought or aided in WWII, among other conflicts. Germany, Korea, etc. Maintaining a military presence is proven to add stability during post-war transition. Blows my mind that they're pulling out of Afghanistan the way they are. It's honestly disgusting.

The billions we've invested in Afghanistan aside, the biggest insult is to the people we lost in all of this. Imagine being a widow or widower and watching this unfold in real time, wondering if your spouse or loved one died for naught.

Imagine being one of the hundreds of thousands who served over there, thinking you're doing good and improving the lives of the Afghan people, and watching the Taliban just undo everything in a matter of days.

Imagine being those Afghan people who had imagined a better future free from Taliban rule watching their dream crumble all so Biden can score campaign points.

Make no mistake about that last part. This accelerated troop withdrawal began under Trump, and he and his administration share some of the blame. But this is Biden's cross to bear.

There's multiple failures, some years in the making. They trained the Afghan army to be a mini-US force, instead of training them to be an anti-taliban force. They were too reliant on US support and hardware, and lacked structure and leadership needed to face the Taliban specifically, but to stand on their own in general.

Biden is on the hook for this mess and he'll be the one who is remembered for pulling the rug out under the Afghans feet. It's absolutely gutting to morale to have the US basically announce the situation is unwinnable, then pull their troops out. It's no wonder the Afghan army is laying down for the Taliban.

Biden could've changed course and come up with a long-term solution, but he cocked that up something fierce. This'll tarnish his legacy, for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised to find the US launching another military campaign into Afghanistan in a decade or two or three, once terrorist cells build another stronghold there.

It's an absolute travesty. Gonna go down as an abject failure in international policy.

---

At least one prevailing theory is that the Taliban coming back into power will be fine, because they've been punished enough that they won't be stupid enough to harbor foreign terrorists in their country again (Islamic/Arabic traditions of hospitality be damned). And outside of that, they're not actually a threat to most Western powers. It would be sort of similar to how Gaddafi mostly kept his head down after the US and UN pushed back in the 80s, and how Saddam Hussein was mostly quiet in the wake of the Gulf War (at least until we started accusing him of helping al-Qaeda and having WMDs).

And as long as they stay in their own little sandbox and only torment their own people, no one really gives a fuck about what they do because they're not bothering us. Same reason no one cared about what the Taliban was doing prior to 2001.

Double bonus points because then Pakistan can go back to tacitly ignoring them and not putting their own borders at risk out of fear of pissing off the US, which is the delicate dance they've been in for the last 20 years (leadership in Pakistan has basically spent two decades spinning plates and hoping the entire country doesn't come apart at the seams). Which China will love, because then Pakistan can go back to focusing all of its energy on dick-waving contests with India.
---

Nothing the US can do well be any help, whether we stay or leave bad things will happen

Unless we can go back in time and not get involved in the middle east at all, it's best to let them be

---

Muscles posted...

Unless we can go back in time and not get involved in the middle east at all, it's best to let them be

More like go back in time and prevent Britain and France from carving the Middle East into awkward chunks after WWI.

A LOT of the chaos in the region for the last 100 years stems from Western nations drawing arbitrary lines on a map and trying to force people into the Western ideal of nationstatehood, when it likely wasn't even remotely what the people in the region would have done if left to their own devices (they probably would have split more along tribal lines and had more amorphous regions of influence).
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

More like go back in time and prevent Britain and France from carving the Middle East into awkward chunks after WWI.

A LOT of the chaos in the region for the last 100 years stems from Western nations drawing arbitrary lines on a map and trying to force people into the Western ideal of nationstatehood, when it likely wasn't even remotely what the people in the region would have done if left to their own devices (they probably would have split more along tribal lines and had more amorphous regions of influence).

This. There's really not a good answer to the problem. The only real answer that people won't like is probably just need to rip the band aid off and leave that region to its own devices and over the course of some decades maybe it will find its way into some kind of normalcy eventually

Its easy to sit on the sideline and spout out about how we shouldnt be there and we shouldnt go back and yadda yadda yadda

meanwhile the women of in Afghanistan are about to suffer in ways none of you can even fucking imagine.

unless a situation is something like a world war, we don't need to police other countries.
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

More like go back in time and prevent Britain and France from carving the Middle East into awkward chunks after WWI.

A LOT of the chaos in the region for the last 100 years stems from Western nations drawing arbitrary lines on a map and trying to force people into the Western ideal of nationstatehood, when it likely wasn't even remotely what the people in the region would have done if left to their own devices (they probably would have split more along tribal lines and had more amorphous regions of influence).

I meant more the west as a whole instead of just America, but yeah France and England have a big part in this too

---

Either leave it alone or conquest war, anything inbetween is completely unproductive.
---

Tell Israel to handle it :b

---

All this proves is what a colossal waste of money and lives this was and that we should've left much sooner.
Every single president from GWB onwards knew this would happen as soon as we withdraw, no matter how long we stayed or what we did, and none of them wanted to be the one left "holding the bag."
The only thing Biden* did wrong was to not fully evacuate the civilians, Afghan allies, etc... and destroy all sensitive info and high tech military hardware (that couldn't be removed) before pulling the troops out.

* The announced time table and general "plan" (or lack thereof) was initiated by Trump last year, btw. So even on that, it's only partly his fault. We've been drawing down troops for a year now.

Zeus posted...

In general, it was a slow-moving trainwreck everybody saw coming but the Biden administration insisted on looking the other way.

Which, of course, is the completely wrong take. The correct take is, if 20 years and trillions of dollars, and backing of the strongest military in the world resulted in the country getting overrun in less a month, then the US should have just either full-on annexed the place, or gotten out a lot, lot sooner (or never have been). The country and its army is just too pathetic to rule on their own, and it was always going to collapse unless the US never left. Good riddance.

As PO said, the likelihood of them being a bother to the West is extremely low, and they can be the region's problem now. The surrounding ME countries were more than happy to let the West go at it alone, while using Afghanistan as their own chessboard, so they can enjoy the aftermath now.

* The announced time table and general "plan" (or lack thereof) was initiated by Trump last year, btw. So even on that, it's only partly his fault. We've been drawing down troops for a year now.

Hell, we've been pairing down troop number for years now, and every time, the Taliban gets a footing back, almost in proportion to the amount of force the US pulls back. Which resulted in a lot of sending more troops back in, making a non-stop yo-yo affect. Again, fully annexing the place would be the only way to prevent this.

The only disgust should be left at the Afghan Army and government. It was thought it would take much, much longer for this to happen. An entire generation has been raised knowing US weaponry, tactics, and safety, and they surrendered to dues in the countryside with no shots, in most cases. It's a 3rd-world dumping ground that is never going to change.

---

The west has spent the last 20 years repelling the Taliban and training the Afghan army. The Afghan army ran like a bunch of pussies.

People get the government they deserve. I feel so sorry for the women and girls of Afghanistan, but this is no longer our problem. We can't pay the bill for safety and democracy in a foreign country forever.

---

faramir77 posted...

The west has spent the last 20 years repelling the Taliban and training the Afghan army. The Afghan army ran like a bunch of pussies.

People get the government they deserve. I feel so sorry for the women and girls of Afghanistan, but this is no longer our problem. We can't pay the bill for safety and democracy in a foreign country forever.

Wouldn't it be cheaper and safer to help them leave the country? I mean, assuming they don't want to stay for, like, "this is our homeland!!" sentiment

---

Not sure if some of you realize but the Afghan army was fighting like 90% of the skirmishes there on their own. This collapse is more a result of a devastating blow to morale and confidence which can be directly attributed to how the US handled this withdrawal.

Could take decades to stabilize the country and put the Taliban out of business for good, but it's shortsighted to say the Afghan army would've failed regardless of US support, because in the short term they were succeeding.

The US military operates with a multifaceted force: army, navy, air force, Marines, special forces, etc. If for some reason we had troops on the ground somewhere and the Air Force and navy up and decided they were gonna pull out and leave our ground troops to fend for themselves, it would be devestating to morale. That would never happen, because we understand the need for proper multilateral support and planned drawdown of forces. Which is why this abandonment makes no sense.

It's unfair to criticize the Afghan army for failing to stand up to the Taliban without placing a sizable chunk of the blame on how the US turned their backs on them and provided the Taliban with the perfect opportunity to take over.

The US would've been better served, in light of how heavily invested we are in Afghanistan, to set up a base of operations similar to Korea or Germany and keep a supporting force there in perpetuity. The way this is going down right now makes the whole thing seem like a gigantic waste, and is a massive insult to those who fought and died for this mission.

---

Far-Queue posted...

It's unfair to criticize the Afghan army for failing to stand up to the Taliban without placing a sizable chunk of the blame on how the US turned their backs on them and provided the Taliban with the perfect opportunity to take over.

Except the only thing that changed was boots on the ground. It's not like we pulled out all reports, intelligence, or even financial backing. Sure, actual lack of troops and air cover is going to weaken their forces, but they aren't dealing with an equal sized or equipped forces, here. It's supposed to be a battle tested Army vs a force with exponentially few resources. In now way should the Taliban stood a chance, here. And instead of fighting to the end, in most cases, the Army/government just surrendered. There's no other way to slice it, it's a pathetic statement against Afghanistan and her people.

Far-Queue posted...

The US would've been better served, in light of how heavily invested we are in Afghanistan, to set up a base of operations similar to Korea or Germany and keep a supporting force there in perpetuity. The way this is going down right now makes the whole thing seem like a gigantic waste, and is a massive insult to those who fought and died for this mission.

Yeah, no. That's an endless sinkhole of money and lives, for virtually no benefit. In Korea and Germany, these were 1st world/budding 1st world nations that took American money, culture, and virtues to fuel themselves into powerhouses in their own right. We having military forces is mostly a benefit to us (well, it helps S. Korea a lot) in our "network of bases" mindset.

Conversely, Afghanistan is perpetually stuck in the 1920's at best, and has zero interest and capabilities in transforming itself using gifts from the US. Keeping a presence there is entirely a benefit for them, but virtually none for us. Sucks that W. Bush spent countless blood and treasure on the place, but it's way and more of an insult to keep throwing said resources on a lost cause. Annex it, because anything else was ALWAYS going to be a waste.

---

Just return Afghanistan to the middle eastern hellhole. There is no reason to help people that do not want to be helped.
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/p53ste/thousands_of_afghans_rushing_towards_airport_in/
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/p51p23/taliban_tells_cnns_clarissa_ward_islamic_law_will/

---

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Sure, actual lack of troops and air cover is going to weaken their forces, but they aren't dealing with an equal sized or equipped forces, here. It's supposed to be a battle tested Army vs a force with exponentially few resources. In now way should the Taliban stood a chance, here.

You're underestimating the blow to Afghan army morale at the US abandonment, as well as the Taliban's capabilities.

Diagree with your assessment that it's a lost cause. It's not something that can be built overnight, but a stable government with a capable, self-sufficient military could be attained, and that would have gone a long way toward combating terrorism.

---

how come the afghan army instantly collapsed? haven't they had training and equipment given to them for the last TWENTY years?

Seems like they didn't even try or care about defending their own country. They had to know the US wasn't going to support them forever. I would have thought for at least the last few years, the afghans were defending their own country with minimal support from the US military...but I guess not?
---

Far-Queue posted...

Diagree with your assessment that it's a lost cause. It's not something that can be built overnight, but a stable government with a capable, self-sufficient military could be attained, and that would have gone a long way toward combating terrorism.

The only way that could *plausibly* work if we were there maybe 60+ years. Sons, fathers, grand-fathers that have grown knowing nothing else but US backed/occupied rule, enough for a permanent culture. *Maybe*.

And even then, so what? Endless trillions and thousands of US lives spent on this, and without annexation, no resources or anything of value to show for it. Combat terrorism? The terrorism that the US fears came from Saudi Arabia (our "ally"), not Afghanistan. And there's dozens upon dozens of terrorist hot spots and safe harbors across the globe (throw a dart at Africa, for example). "Taming" Afghanistan would be a drop in the bucket.

Right-wing terrorists and general mass shooters/gun violence commit several 9/11's worth of body count every year right at home in the US, AND is openly supported by 1 of the 2 major political parties. Clearly, combatting terrorism isn't really atop of the US's priority list.

---

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

The only way that could *plausibly* work if we were there maybe 60+ years.

How long has the US been in Germany, now?

---

Query, Zeus - given that the timeline for withdrawal was set out by Trump in his administration's negotiations with the Taliban, with Biden simply following that timeline, do you believe that Trump made a bad decision in choosing to withdraw troops from the country?

---

The more I read about this the more fucked the whole situation is. This is the culmination of 20 years of failures, both in Afghanistan and in DC. The US was in a very difficult spot.

Trump had brokered a deal with the Taliban to facilitate US troop withdrawal. They left the Afghan government out of the negotiations, and basically gave Afghanistan up to the Taliban on a platter for assurances that the Taliban would not attack US forces as they withdrew. They also got Taliban prisoners released. Really, the Taliban got pretty much everything they could want from the deal, and the US got very little in kind.

This deal left Biden in a tight spot. Does he move forward with Trump's plan to cut and run and throw away 20 years of half-assed progress? Or does he break the deal set in place with the Taliban and risk emboldening them to attack US forces? Ultimately, we know the answer.

I still question the means with which the withdrawal was carried out, but not so much the withdrawal itself. The Afghan government the US had installed was rife with corruption and grotesquely ineffective. I had heard of the corruption of course, for a long time now, but recent news reports have been eye opening.

Could we have left a force there to support the Afghan army? Possibly. That may have broken the deal set in place with the Taliban, however. This would've triggered conflict for sure and led to significant destabilization, perhaps not on the scale we're seeing but certainly would've been a terrific setback, and led to more US deaths.

Long-term there would have had to have been a near-complete overhaul of the government the US put there in the first place. Like I said earlier, this would take decades. Not so sure it would be worth it, but as I said earlier in light of how heavily invested the US is there it certainly should've been considered. However, given the details I've read on Trump's awful deal with the Taliban, I'm not sure there was much of an option there. To be clear, I'm not placing the blame solely on Trump's shoulders. As I said, this is the culmination of 20 years of bullshit. It's a fucking mess there.

It's a travesty how this is playing out. No decision could be the right decision. They're all bad decisions with differing levels of bullshit attached to them.

---

Far-Queue posted...

I still question the means with which the withdrawal was carried out, but not so much the withdrawal itself. The Afghan government the US had installed was rife with corruption and grotesquely ineffective. I had heard of the corruption of course, for a long time now, but recent news reports have been eye opening.

To be fair, when you go into someone else's land and beat the ever-loving shit out of every facet of their organizational infrastructure, it's kind of up to you to help them rebuild it.

If you help them build a rotted shack out of mismatched boards, you kind of don't get to complain about the mess. You definitely don't get to blame them for not being good enough when you half-ass everything and then punch out.

The problem the US has had for decades now is that we're eager to go in to places and blow shit up (because blowing shit up obviously solves all problems - and if the problem isn't solved, you clearly didn't blow enough shit up), but we never have an actual exit strategy in mind, and we're abysmally incompetent when it comes to the concept of reconstruction (we've been fucking that one up since the 1860s!). So all we ever really seem to do is make worse messes than the ones we're trying to fix, and then peace out and absolve ourselves of all responsibility because responsibility is hard.

This isn't a single incident, this is a pattern of behavior. We're pretty much the abusive boyfriend of the modern world.
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, when you go into someone else's land and beat the ever-loving shit out of every facet of their organizational infrastructure, it's kind of up to you to help them rebuild it.

If you help them build a rotted shack out of mismatched boards, you kind of don't get to complain about the mess. You definitely don't get to blame them for not being good enough when you half-ass everything and then punch out.

The problem the US has had for decades now is that we're eager to go in to places and blow shit up (because blowing shit up obviously solves all problems - and if the problem isn't solved, you clearly didn't blow enough shit up), but we never have an actual exit strategy in mind, and we're abysmally incompetent when it comes to the concept of reconstruction (we've been fucking that one up since the 1860s!). So all we ever really seem to do is make worse messes than the ones we're trying to fix, and then peace out and absolve ourselves of all responsibility because responsibility is hard.

This isn't a single incident, this is a pattern of behavior. We're pretty much the abusive boyfriend of the modern world.

right? thats why japan is such a shithole and didnt have a postwar economic miracle. the us just cant do anything right!

youre a geezer PO. youre supposed to know this shit.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, when you go into someone else's land and beat the ever-loving shit out of every facet of their organizational infrastructure, it's kind of up to you to help them rebuild it.

If you help them build a rotted shack out of mismatched boards, you kind of don't get to complain about the mess. You definitely don't get to blame them for not being good enough when you half-ass everything and then punch out.

The problem the US has had for decades now is that we're eager to go in to places and blow shit up (because blowing shit up obviously solves all problems - and if the problem isn't solved, you clearly didn't blow enough shit up), but we never have an actual exit strategy in mind, and we're abysmally incompetent when it comes to the concept of reconstruction (we've been fucking that one up since the 1860s!). So all we ever really seem to do is make worse messes than the ones we're trying to fix, and then peace out and absolve ourselves of all responsibility because responsibility is hard.

This isn't a single incident, this is a pattern of behavior. We're pretty much the abusive boyfriend of the modern world.

Agreed, though I'll add that on top of blowing the ever-loving shit out of everything being the US's "one size fits all" solution, war is also insanely lucrative to a select group of companies and organizations.

---

Notschmendrake posted...

right? thats why japan is such a shithole and didnt have a postwar economic miracle. the us just cant do anything right!

Telling that you had to go back to the 1940s to find an example where we didn't fuck things up.
---

Far-Queue posted...

(we've been f***ing that one up since the 1860s!)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Telling that you had to go back to the 1940s to find an example where we didn't fuck things up.

telling that you had to backpedal about 80 years and act still act like you didnt fuck up son

Notschmendrake posted...

telling that you had to backpedal about 80 years and act still act like you didnt fuck up son

Might want to develop a rudimentary level of reading comprehension and then go back and reread what you're quoting there, sparky.

Or not, because it would probably be harder for you to accomplish that miracle than it would have been for us to fix Afghanistan.
---

Balls

---

What better way to make a country better than to occupy it with military forces and do next to nothing to build a real infrastructure

Fiery but mostly peaceful Islamic takeover of the Afghanistan Government

---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Might want to develop a rudimentary level of reading comprehension and then go back and reread what you're quoting there, sparky.

Or not, because it would probably be harder for you to accomplish that miracle than it would have been for us to fix Afghanistan.

and then he takes a paragraph to say "nuh uh!"

because if you werent the old guy who makes longwinded posts you wouldnt be anyone lmao, get over yourself

ParanoidObsessive posted...

This isn't a single incident, this is a pattern of behavior. We're pretty much the abusive boyfriend of the modern world.

Tbf, Vietnam turned out alright in the long run. But to be fair again, not the best comparison, since we never every fully controlled Vietnam, South or otherwise, and thus didn't really have an infrastructure plan to compare it to. Leaving was ultimately what was best for the place.


---

no good answer

---

Notschmendrake posted...

Its easy to sit on the sideline and spout out about how we shouldnt be there and we shouldnt go back and yadda yadda yadda

meanwhile the women of in Afghanistan are about to suffer in ways none of you can even fucking imagine.

The men are also dying and being tormented by the talibans.
It's ignorant to say that only women(and children) are affected by this.
Way over half of the victims have been males.
---

Yeah, basically there's a massive range of ignorant takes on this.

---

I'm not sure how the situation is expected to change unless you're willing to be full totalitarianism, round up all the people in the country, and force them into reeducation camps where they either get brainwashed to your liking or be killed for refusing to conform, and murder everyone who resists.

And banning all education that doesn't preach modern western values, brainwashing people while they are kids, the most effective time to do it.

This is all horribly evil of course, the question is if you think it's worth it.

Endless occupation without changing the culture accomplishes nothing.
---

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Tbf, Vietnam turned out alright in the long run. But to be fair again, not the best comparison, since we never every fully controlled Vietnam, South or otherwise, and thus didn't really have an infrastructure plan to compare it to. Leaving was ultimately what was best for the place.

Vietnam in particular is fascinating, and they didn't talk about it at all in school, and a lot of stuff has a pretty disgusting pro-American bias.
I'd really like to learn more about them, it's frankly incredible how they defeated the French army, then outlasted the U.S. military, and despite all of the agent orange and other devastation we wrought on them, went on to beat back a Chinese army and even invade Cambodia to drive out Pol Pot, then w/ the U.S. sanctioning and trying to isolate them economically every step of the way after decades of warfare, emerged as a modern successful nation.
I genuinely have a ton of admiration and respect for them.