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Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

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Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#51

Post by Eckolnojh »

implements wrote: post #19
Clewza313 wrote: post #3

Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.

The locals keeping their heads down in the face of an insurgency the Afghan state is clearly unable to defeat probably shouldn’t be presented as “strong popular support” (the true level of which is supposed to be about 10%).

Is there even such a thing as an "Afghan state"? From what little I know of their culture, they're more accurately described as tribes or clans who happens to speak similar languages and have the same religion rather than a nation-state.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#52

Post by trainsplanes »

Clewza313 wrote: post #3

Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.

Vietnam ultimately became a pretty nice country a few years after the US government finally gave up on trying to turn it into hell on earth, and it’s only getting better.

If this really is Saigon 2.0, 20 years from now Afghanistan will be a peaceful country with active tourism. With the Taliban seemingly making efforts to appease China for economic gain, who knows, it just might happen.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#53

Post by bawolff »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #46
yalogin wrote: post #32

What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.

>>>Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Not that the US DoD is in any way a model of efficiency, but I suspect you are vastly underestimating the difficulty of the problem set. Over the past 200 years, the British, Soviet, and American empires have all failed to pacify Afghanistan. Probably the Mongols and Alexander the Great struggled too, I need to dig into the history of those cam…

Does china really have designs on Afghanistan? For what purpose?

(I mean this as an honest question, i don't know that much of the geopolitics of the region)

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#54

Post by jokoon »

throwawaysea wrote: post #37

The Taliban has already entered the capital ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistans-taliban-seize-jala... ). This is an utter disaster for Biden and America. We should instead have performed a slower withdrawal and also continued to maintain a military presence permanently at Bagram field. Instead it appears China and Pakistan will welcome a new Taliban government and build new economic ties while America loses i…

Remember that it was trump who initiated departure from afghanistan, and deals were signed.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#55

Post by hulitu »

implements wrote: post #19
Clewza313 wrote: post #3

Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.

The locals keeping their heads down in the face of an insurgency the Afghan state is clearly unable to defeat probably shouldn’t be presented as “strong popular support” (the true level of which is supposed to be about 10%).

They are surely sick of 20 years of useless war so they will support the new leaders.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#56

Post by jacquesm »

bjourne wrote: post #48
yalogin wrote: post #32

What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.

Remember that it was 20 very profitable years for some. Check the stock tickers, see what companies stocks have skyrocketed.

This is very true. There are plenty of people that probably consider the Afghanistan war a resounding success.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#57

Post by Eckolnojh »

baybal2 wrote: post #23
Clewza313 wrote: post #3

Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.

> I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support. The explanation is very, very simple, but I don't see any Western media talking about it at all. Basically, Afghan government fell apart when USA withdrew the pork barrel of military contracts from locals. People forget that 20 years ago USA mounted all kinds o…

> USA can't now fight half the world dominated by solidified group of corrupt regimes.

If there is anything the past few decades have shown, it's that the pocketbook and the sword are both useless tools when it comes to any kind of Middle Eastern policy.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#58

Post by WalterBright »

vishnugupta wrote: post #47

Worth quoting this passage from an insightful article[1] People fought in Afghanistan, and people died, but not always in the obvious way. They had been fighting for so long, twenty-three years then, that by the time the Americans arrived the Afghans had developed an elaborate set of rules designed to spare as many fighters as they could. So the war could go on forever. Men fought, men switched sides, men lined up an…

Sounds a lot like the Italian mercenary armies in the middle ages, where they mostly maneuvered for advantage rather than fought. Being mercenaries, they had little interest in dying for their employer's cause.

Re: Taliban enter Kabul as Afghan government on brink of collapse

#59

Post by CydeWeys »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #46
yalogin wrote: post #32

What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.

>>>Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Not that the US DoD is in any way a model of efficiency, but I suspect you are vastly underestimating the difficulty of the problem set. Over the past 200 years, the British, Soviet, and American empires have all failed to pacify Afghanistan. Probably the Mongols and Alexander the Great struggled too, I need to dig into the history of those cam…

> Over the past 200 years, the British, Soviet, and American empires have all failed to pacify Afghanistan. Probably the Mongols and Alexander the Great struggled too, I need to dig into the history of those campaigns for more specifics.

I recommend checking out this thread, as the whole Afghanistan = Graveyard of empires meme only applies to quite recent history.

https://twitter.com/Alex_Khaleeli/status/1425608335726940166...

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