Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thetimes.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 90 posts

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

#81

Post by neartheplain »

pseudo0 wrote: post #68
neartheplain wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inte…

That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. Many nice houses in the D.C. area have been built with that money, not including the palatial mansions and homes of American defense contractors.

>The Afghani soldiers and police are in it for a paycheck

I think you meant, "Afghan soldiers and police." Afghani is (fittingly) the Afghan unit of currency.

>...while the Taliban are fighting for an ideological cause they perceive to be just.

It's not a matter of how many Afghans perceive a certain cause to be just. It's a matter of how many are willing to suffer and die for their cause to come out on top. Even if only a minority support the Taliban, as recent polling shows to be the case, they can impose their will on the majority if they're more willing to suffer and kill. Of course, suffering is easier to endure when you're getting paid.

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

#82

Post by Causality1 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #78
Causality1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step in and do what? Occupy the country indefinitely? How many decades will it take for Afghanistan to stop being Afghanistan?

I’m an American, so my taxes have footed the bill for Afghanistan’s security and liberty for the last twenty years. I don’t like that this is the cost (and I’m sympathetic to people who are frustrated at the expense), but seeing how quickly the Taliban have swept in, I would rather maintain a minimal force for another two decades, especially if the burden could be shared by the International community and perhaps spe…

Occupying Afghanistan is just throwing money and blood down a hole for what exactly? For people who don't want us there? Because we're too embarrassed to admit there are problems we can't solve with M16s and Coca-Cola? It's the graveyard of empires for a reason. Even if you snapped your fingers and right now political violence was forever ended in Afghanistan it still wouldn't have been worth the cost. A foreign occupying force isn't "fixing" Afghanistan any more than an orderly is fixing a violent mental patient by sitting on his chest.

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

#83

Post by pseudo0 »

neartheplain wrote: post #81
pseudo0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inte…

That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. Many nice houses in the D.C. area have been built with that money, not including the palatial mansions and homes of American defense contractors. >The Afghani soldiers and police are in it for a paycheck I think you meant, "Afghan soldiers and police." Afghani…

> That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled.

This isn't exactly a compelling argument for our continued support of Afghanistan's government... We've been funding them to the tune of $3-10 billion a year in defense funding, and the corruption is so extreme that they are failing against the Taliban, with estimated total funding of $300 million to $1.6 billion [0]? That's an obscene level of graft. If 20 years on we still haven't reduced corruption to a manageable level, is it realistically even achievable?

> It's not a matter of how many Afghans perceive a certain cause to be just. It's a matter of how many are willing to suffer and die for their cause to come out on top. Even if only a minority support the Taliban, as recent polling shows to be the case, they can impose their will on the majority if they're more willing to suffer and kill. Of course, suffering is easier to endure when you're getting paid.

I saw the 13.4% statistic that you cited elsewhere, but I'm inclined to think that's either a low estimate or there are an awful lot of people who are ambivalent as long as basic government services continue. If the Taliban were truly culturally incompatible with the average citizen, surely there would be more organized resistance? From the news reports I've seen, the Taliban typically move into a new area, the local government rolls over, basic services continue, and the average person shrugs and moves on with their life.

[0] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan

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

#84

Post by azth »

NonContro wrote: post #41

The Taliban are now armed with American weapons. Entire bases were abandoned overnight, full of supplies and equipment: https://youtu.be/f37xrmiqmnU?t=132 There are videos of Taliban rolling through cities in American humvees: https://t.co/cdHsZgjSv8 Its a matter of time before they take Kabul. $2.2trillion gifted to the Military Industrial Complex.

Another illegitimate occupier defeated. Is anyone surprised?

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

#85

Post by avsteele »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #79
avsteele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the territory controlled by the Taliban vs time while we were at this level. They were not contained. We just were keeping them out of a few urban areas. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57933979

I skimming your link, it seems the Taliban didn’t take significant territory until the US pulled out altogether. In the time during which the US was not actively fighting on the ground but was providing logistic support and air strikes and so on, the Taliban were effectively kept at bay.

You need to look a bit more carefully, and ideally at more than just at the one link. The US and gov controlled the country entirely at one point. By 2017 The large swaths of the country are contested.

61% by 2018. The writing was on the wall.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us...

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

#86

Post by failwhaleshark »

jeffrallen wrote: post #2

War is stupid.

War is [often] a racket. - Smedley Butler

On the defensive-side: Weakness invites aggression. Prepare for war so you don't have to. MAD is that and has prevented untold world wars and potentially billions of deaths for 70 years by making large-scale war too costly.

On the other hand: Over-preparing, over-extending, and over-spending on unnecessary wars is evidence of MIC corruption.

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

#87

Post by laurent92 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #80
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.”

> the US has the GDP to outlast declining Russia I particularly look forward to Russia’s declining influence as the world transitions away from oil. As much as people like to criticize US leadership and government, the Kremlin is on a whole different level (and I’m glad that this isn’t such a controversial sentiment among liberals since 2016).

Counterpoint: Global warming can make most of Russian inhabitable, enable farming on vast regions, and the Northern Route of merchandise through the poles can make them a central actor in international commerce.

Meanwhile “every country has a reason to hate US”, hating the US is often the easy game to play in local politics, and maybe all of them are joining the tipping jar to pay those who can make us decline. Loss of trust towards media and institutions, judges ruling that monopolies can keep rolling or judges “not acting” when clearly facing criminal activity, loss of trust towards police, activism groups which I’d wonder how they remain out of prison, that requires funding and bribes; if I were the Talibans, China, Russia, or any country of the middle east really, I would fund them until the US collapses or loses its dominant position. It’s all hypothesis but it’s easy to implement.

It’s not a given that USA doesn’t decline in front of other, less hated superpowers.

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

#88

Post by lumost »

pseudo0 wrote: post #83
neartheplain wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. Many nice houses in the D.C. area have been built with that money, not including the palatial mansions and homes of American defense contractors. >The Afghani soldiers and police are in it for a paycheck I think you meant, "Afghan soldiers and police." Afghani…

> That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. This isn't exactly a compelling argument for our continued support of Afghanistan's government... We've been funding them to the tune of $3-10 billion a year in defense funding, and the corruption is so extreme that they are failing against the Taliban, with…

Large external funding tends to build corrupt governments due to bad incentives. It's possible that the Afghan government was effectively built to simply appease American advisors and convince them to request more money rather than actually servicing the needs of Afghans.

You don't get a renewed 10 billion dollars in defense grants by showing well maintained equipment and a well disciplined army.

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

#89

Post by ksaj »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #69
MattGaiser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The key word was 'plan,' although I can see how it can sound like it meant airstrikes were happening there.

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

#90

Post by neartheplain »

pseudo0 wrote: post #83
neartheplain wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. Many nice houses in the D.C. area have been built with that money, not including the palatial mansions and homes of American defense contractors. >The Afghani soldiers and police are in it for a paycheck I think you meant, "Afghan soldiers and police." Afghani…

> That funding must flow through the massively corrupt Afghan bureaucracy before soldiers or police ever see it. Much of it gets skimmed, wasted, and embezzled. This isn't exactly a compelling argument for our continued support of Afghanistan's government... We've been funding them to the tune of $3-10 billion a year in defense funding, and the corruption is so extreme that they are failing against the Taliban, with…

>This isn't exactly a compelling argument for our continued support of Afghanistan's government...

I haven't made such an argument. Just outlining the problems.

Post reply on HN