Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
prestonbyrne.com
Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
1–10 of 44 posts
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#2The parallel with Jan 6 is instructive; memetic insurgency, but this time successful. As is the Taliban being far better at state-building than the highly corrupt puppet state, whose leaders packed as much cash as possible into their SUVs and fled for Uzbekistan.
Should these people have been banned from Twitter and Whatsapp? Well, did they break any rules of the service or are we back to having the CIA hand them a list of enemies?
Moreover, did anyone even care enough?
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#3Was Afghanistan America's during these 20 years?
American taxpayers must be thrilled about this little trip.
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#4'disruption'.
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#5Read ghost wars and directorate S. Few simple narratives explain afghanistan. It is a clusterfuck but for reasons that are definitely not at all related to whatsapp. In the simplest expression it has been a proxy war with pakistan or at least pakistans psuedo-separate intelligence services.
If you want to talk win and lose, we "lost" afghanistan in february 1989 when the soviets left and we promptly abandoned all the afghanis that helped us to assist in driving them out.
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#6Read ghost wars and directorate S. Few simple narratives explain afghanistan. It is a clusterfuck but for reasons that are definitely not at all related to whatsapp. In the simplest expression it has been a proxy war with pakistan or at least pakistans psuedo-separate intelligence services. If you want to talk win and lose, we "lost" afghanistan in february 1989 when the soviets left and we promptly abandoned all the…
Ah, the old Afghanistan resistance. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-os... (1993)
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#7This article about the fall of Saigon is interesting, lots of pictures of people evacuation.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/fall-of-saigon-vietnam-anni...
Almost same situation, trying to "save" people who do not want to be "saved"
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#8This article about the fall of Saigon is interesting, lots of pictures of people evacuation. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/fall-of-saigon-vietnam-anni... Almost same situation, trying to "save" people who do not want to be "saved"
I recently found out what the significance of this day is to modern Vietnam: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunification_Day
Mind you, it's important to note that a lot of the people fleeing Afghanistan right now are absolutely right to do so because they risk execution under the incoming regime, and the West should grant them asylum. We can and should save individuals, even if "we" cannot "save" Afghanistan as a whole.
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#9There are enough other networks and apps they could use. It’s just a modern communication channel. The surrender of complete provinces has nothing to do with WhatsApp or Twitter but is a cultural practice in the 40 years Afghan war.
Re: Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
#10It's a good article.
I liked this interview where the commentator (Peter Bergen) talks about the symbolism of the USA pulling out. It didn't matter if they were doing nothing, just being there was enough even with limited troops https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/08/14/was-it-a-mistak...
Which this article plays too. The US left and the default became the Taliban, like a run on the bank.
The Taliban needed a free flowing network to get the run going, WhatsApp might have been it.
It's certainly an intelligence failure if WhatsApp wasn't considered in depth.