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US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#61

Post by neartheplain »

fnord77 wrote: post #32
throwaway894345 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that the Afghan people by and large do not want Taliban rule, right? Very few want to be ruled by a violent, oppressive theocracy. Personally I would like the US to leave Afghanistan as well, but I have sympathy for the people who may have to suffer Taliban rule. Ideally the international or at least regional community would step in.

where do new taliban come from? It's been 20 years since the original invasion and the Taliban from back then are probably either all dead or too old to fight. So it must be a popular ideology for some.

Or it could be that the Taliban just pays fighters better [0] compared to the central government in Kabul. Their annual revenue from drug trafficking, extortion, and donations exceeds $1.5B USD [1]. Private citizens from Pakistan and Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban each year [2]. Taliban fighters are also funded and trained directly by the Pakistani government [3]. Little wonder that they're able to take whole towns and cities without fighting, especially when the central government's fighters are underpaid when they're paid at all [4].

[0] https://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/taliban-pay-vs-...

[1] https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-are-megarich-heres-w...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46554097

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/10302946

[4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-security-idUS...

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#62

Post by mbg721 »

HeckFeck wrote: post #14

Hey, a concert instead of bombs might promote goodwill and healing in a war town land. Though I'm not sure how well an Islamist group would take to 'Love Shack', it might actually further sour relations.

Might work better for Iraq: "There's a lot of ruins...in Mesopotamia".

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#63

Post by jdavis703 »

HeckFeck wrote: post #14

Hey, a concert instead of bombs might promote goodwill and healing in a war town land. Though I'm not sure how well an Islamist group would take to 'Love Shack', it might actually further sour relations.

Many interpretations of Islamic teachings prohibit listening to music. If the goal is to win hearts and minds, I don’t think imposing religiously forbidden entertainment would be helpful.

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#64

Post by toomuchtodo »

kook_throwaway wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many already (and will always) hate the US, and the US has the GDP to outlast declining Russia. If anything, this is a test bed for remote force projection. If Afghans want US protection that doesn’t require boots on the ground, that seems reasonable considering capabilities already available. “Peace through superior firepower.”

Peace and allies through collateral damage.

Do nothing, do something, we lose in a way regardless.

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#65

Post by yorwba »

rich_sasha wrote: post #27
roenxi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, my brother! The idea that these Muslims could govern themselves leaves me in tears of laughter and what they really need to sort them out is an American colonial presence. This failed 20 year US strategy can only work out great in the long term for the people of Afghanistan! ... and without the dripping sarcasm, in all seriousness, the US has been destabilising the Middle East for decades and will happily ov…

85% of Afghans have “no sympathy for the Taliban”, never mind support them. Not really a strong mandate, democratic or otherwise: https://asiafoundation.org/publication/afghanistan-in-2019-a...

On the other hand, from the same report:

> Overall, confidence in governmental and nongovernmental organizations has increased, with the exception of the Independent Election Commission, which has seen confidence drop from 43.3% in 2018 to 42.3% in 2019. As in previous years, Afghans have the most confidence in religious leaders (71.2%). Compared to 2018, confidence in MPs has gone up by 10.2 percentage points, from 42.3% in 2018 to 52.6% in 2019, the highest level so far. Confidence in the following organizations has improved since last year: government ministers (up 6.1 percentage points, to 44.4%), national NGOs (up 4.0 percentage points, to 53.3%), provincial councils (up 4.7 percentage points, to 55.6%) and international NGOs (up 4.9 percentage points, to 47.3%)

So religious leaders (presumably non-Taliban) have much stronger support than the government or NGOs.

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#66

Post by rich_sasha »

yorwba wrote: post #65
rich_sasha wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

85% of Afghans have “no sympathy for the Taliban”, never mind support them. Not really a strong mandate, democratic or otherwise: https://asiafoundation.org/publication/afghanistan-in-2019-a...

On the other hand, from the same report: > Overall, confidence in governmental and nongovernmental organizations has increased, with the exception of the Independent Election Commission, which has seen confidence drop from 43.3% in 2018 to 42.3% in 2019. As in previous years, Afghans have the most confidence in religious leaders (71.2%). Compared to 2018, confidence in MPs has gone up by 10.2 percentage points, from…

Yes, very possibly. The Afghan government is definitely a US-installed chimera. There very likely is a better representation of Afghan people, it just it doesn’t seem to be the Taliban.

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#67

Post by walkedaway »

dehrmann wrote: post #58

What surprises me the most about the US withdrawing is that Biden didn't remember what happened when the US left Iraq when he was VP. Military commentators were almost universally saying withdrawing was a bad idea, especially with how few US resources were in Afghanistan.

Why is that surprising? Have you not been paying attention to Biden's lack of mental capacity the past couple years?

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#68

Post by pseudo0 »

neartheplain wrote: post #61
fnord77 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where do new taliban come from? It's been 20 years since the original invasion and the Taliban from back then are probably either all dead or too old to fight. So it must be a popular ideology for some.

Or it could be that the Taliban just pays fighters better [0] compared to the central government in Kabul. Their annual revenue from drug trafficking, extortion, and donations exceeds $1.5B USD [1]. Private citizens from Pakistan and Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban each year [2]. Taliban fighters are also funded and trained directly by the Pakistan…

Going off 2009 numbers, the US spent $5.8 billion in foreign aid on the Afghan Security Forces Fund, and about a billion more on various counternarcotics programs [0]. This funding went up to around $10 billion in 2011, and slowly declined to around $3.6 billion in 2019. This also doesn't include the air support, troop advisors, special forces, etc. that we provided to supplement Afghanistan's government, or the international aid provided by other coalition partners. So they clearly have a massive financial advantage over the Taliban, as this doesn't even include tax revenue and other standard military funding sources.

Also, your [4] link is specifically talking about the police being underpaid and undertrained, not the army. My guess is that it primarily comes down to a huge motivation gap. The Afghani soldiers and police are in it for a paycheck, not to get shot, while the Taliban are fighting for an ideological cause they perceive to be just.

[0] - https://foreignassistance.gov/cd/AFG?measure=Obligations&fis...

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#69

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

MattGaiser wrote: post #22
echelon wrote: post #12

The Taliban regime is going to be hostile to women. It'll be a return to violence, executions, and feudalism. Yet I see a lot of liberals that have no problem with a Taliban takeover and would rather see a US withdrawal. I'm a liberal person, but I think Taliban takeover is a horrific outcome. What's the argument / angle here? Furthermore, it seems to open the geopolitical sphere for China to step into the vacuum. It…

I think they should just do a South Korea type plan with airstrikes, which has basically been the last 5 years. There are 30,000 soldiers in SK. Is posting 10,000 in Afghanistan for logistical, medical, training, and airstrike purposes really that crazy? You can keep letting the Afghan soldiers do the fighting as that is what is politically necessary, but give them a pile of support on the rear end.

Huh? South Korean airstrikes in the last 5 years? Where? Or did I misunderstand you?

Re: US unleashes B-52s in bid to stem Taliban advance

#70

Post by rascul »

laurent92 wrote: post #23
MattGaiser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Americans haven't been engaged in ground combat operations for years now outside of special forces. They were just providing the weapons, logistics, training, and air power to contain the Taliban. That seems reasonably sustainable. Make it into South Korea with airstrikes.

Afghanistan is about the same size as Texas, permanent occupation is technically manageable. However, it would bring hate upon the US. It’s also a proxy-war with Russia, who might be funding the opposite side, so the costs to colonization are not just occupation, but hedging the spendings of all other countries who don’t want USA to occupy the zone. So, impossible if we don’t get others on board, among Arab countries…

> It’s also a proxy-war with Russia

If that's the case, it's a recent development in the last several years. Possibly since the Ukraine incident. Russia and the Taliban have been enemies for decades before.

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