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Ghetto Prince posted:The government seems to have moved most forces to the east to try to rescue Lashkargah, which isn't nearly as important as Zaranj. Yes. Major uptick in SF presence in lashkargah.
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Aug 7, 2021 17:54
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Now THAT is a shock. That’s the first real stronghold thats fallen and its the capital of the one warlord I figured would still hold out.
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Aug 7, 2021 17:55
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Large scale US airstrikes to resume against advancing Taliban, apparently with the latest B-52 deployment to the gulf apperently meant for Afghanistan (and perhaps a signal to Iran) Guess the US is having second thought about allowing for Afghanistan to completely collapse.
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Aug 8, 2021 00:49
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I feel like it's "decent interval" style rear end covering. If the country falls completely within months of withdrawal, it becomes an easier attack against Biden than if the country just sort of gradually crumbles as the culmination of an inevitable process. Either way it's obviously a failure spanning multiple administrations that Biden just happened to inherit the tail end of, but the suddeness of the Taliban's advance makes it appear like a new thing.
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Aug 8, 2021 02:23
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Did we do bombing after the fall of Saigon in ‘75 also?
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Aug 8, 2021 02:31
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FlamingLiberal posted:Did we do bombing after the fall of Saigon in ‘75 also? Nah, once we were done with that war we were really done with that war, so we didn't impede their advance. The fact that North Vietnam was already a real government with international recognition makes it a different story though, plus the US had much higher war weariness from Vietnam, while most Americans barely remember Afghanistan exists at this point. FWIW I'm not entirely sold on the idea that we're going to start up a massive bombing campaign in Afghanistan either, and this could just be the geopolitical equivalent of warning shots (or "we didn't do literally nothing" rear end covering instead of "well we dragged it out for another year" rear end covering), so we'll have to wait and see. But the Taliban wasn't widely recognized as a legitimate government even when they controlled the country, so bombing them won't bother anyone too much either way. Even countries that don't like the US mostly either also dislike the Taliban a whole lot or just wouldn't mind seeing the US keep wasting money blowing poo poo up there. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Aug 8, 2021 |
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Aug 8, 2021 02:45
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As Ebrahim Raisi got sworn in four days ago, I anticipate a shitstorm of bullshit coming out of Iran this month.
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Aug 8, 2021 04:13
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More losses in the north, the Taliban took Kunduz, and Sar-e Pol is reported to be surrendering right now. The government is still trying to get back into Lashkar Gah and accomplishing nothing there. This is starting to look like a complete collapse.
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Aug 8, 2021 09:36
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Ghetto Prince posted:More losses in the north, the Taliban took Kunduz, and Sar-e Pol is reported to be surrendering right now. The government is still trying to get back into Lashkar Gah and accomplishing nothing there. Give it time. There was a big intl hubub about what to do. Now it's a little quieter with the US doing a bot response of "we ask for immediate ceasefire", LOL. Yeah buddy guess what the Taliban will have a permanent ceasefire in place in just a few months.
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Aug 8, 2021 17:09
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Sinteres posted:Nah, once we were done with that war we were really done with that war, so we didn't impede their advance. The fact that North Vietnam was already a real government with international recognition makes it a different story though, plus the US had much higher war weariness from Vietnam, while most Americans barely remember Afghanistan exists at this point. FWIW I'm not entirely sold on the idea that we're going to start up a massive bombing campaign in Afghanistan either, and this could just be the geopolitical equivalent of warning shots (or "we didn't do literally nothing" rear end covering instead of "well we dragged it out for another year" rear end covering), so we'll have to wait and see. But the Taliban wasn't widely recognized as a legitimate government even when they controlled the country, so bombing them won't bother anyone too much either way. Even countries that don't like the US mostly either also dislike the Taliban a whole lot or just wouldn't mind seeing the US keep wasting money blowing poo poo up there. With the advance of ISIS in Iraq the breaking point was Baghdad. Up until that point the US was comfortable pretending it was raining as ISIS claimed most of the non-Kurd western territories. The US was committed enough to keeping course that even the fall of Mosul didn't merit course correction. All that said, ISIS advanced on Baghdad several years after Obama's roll-out. Here we're talking months if things keep pace. Ghetto Prince posted:More losses in the north, the Taliban took Kunduz, and Sar-e Pol is reported to be surrendering right now. The government is still trying to get back into Lashkar Gah and accomplishing nothing there. It's like I wrote a few weeks ago, there's just not enough people willing to lay down their lives for the idea of the Afghan state. Or at the very least, not outside of Kabul.
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Aug 8, 2021 17:13
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Sinteres posted:Nah, once we were done with that war we were really done with that war, so we didn't impede their advance. The fact that North Vietnam was already a real government with international recognition makes it a different story though, plus the US had much higher war weariness from Vietnam, while most Americans barely remember Afghanistan exists at this point. FWIW I'm not entirely sold on the idea that we're going to start up a massive bombing campaign in Afghanistan either, and this could just be the geopolitical equivalent of warning shots (or "we didn't do literally nothing" rear end covering instead of "well we dragged it out for another year" rear end covering), so we'll have to wait and see. But the Taliban wasn't widely recognized as a legitimate government even when they controlled the country, so bombing them won't bother anyone too much either way. Even countries that don't like the US mostly either also dislike the Taliban a whole lot or just wouldn't mind seeing the US keep wasting money blowing poo poo up there. The regional player dynamic going forward will be interesting. China, Iran, and Russia were/are definitely no friends of the Taliban, so in the old days they'd be cheering US military action for their own reasons. But I think the times have changed - most important has been the complete devastation of USA's empire making. And regional assets will continue to slip away and even partners will continue to look elsewhere. I don't think anyone would join the Taliban in military action against the USA if they decide to attack again, but I think the USA will learn quickly that this isn't the 2000s anymore. That self-righteous yankee cowboy swagger has less currency these days, and will only get worse as the years go on.
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Aug 8, 2021 17:23
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This was pretty evident with Cuba, where, after a week of drumming up fervor against the island, Blinken managed to assemble an utterly anemic list of nations willing to even go the length of toothlessly denouncing an island they largely aren't allowed to trade with. America has no clout left in the field of foreign policy. South America is experiencing a new pink wave, Afghanistan is officially a lost war, domestic public opinion is turning against Israel, and Iran has predictably reacted to the US's latest bullshit with anointing the most anti-US president possible. Their biggest achievement as of late has been turning international public opinion against China (but not government opinions, who still need to trade with them), and COVID-19 conspiracies did the brunt of the work there.
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Aug 8, 2021 18:13
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MiddleOne posted:With the advance of ISIS in Iraq the breaking point was Baghdad. Up until that point the US was comfortable pretending it was raining as ISIS claimed most of the non-Kurd western territories. The US was committed enough to keeping course that even the fall of Mosul didn't merit course correction. All that said, ISIS advanced on Baghdad several years after Obama's roll-out. Here we're talking months if things keep pace. The difference is the Taliban only want to control Afghanistan, they aren't going to invade their neighbors and wont directly do international terror attacks
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Aug 8, 2021 19:16
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https://twitter.com/RisboLensky/status/1424340948838928386
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Aug 8, 2021 20:00
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US is withdrawing from Afghanistan in reverse technological order.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:02
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"Stratobombers" carry guided bombs the same as drones or fighters do.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:06
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OctaMurk posted:"Stratobombers" carry guided bombs the same as drones or fighters do. Yeah, they're not carpet bombing. I think the advantage is they can launch them from bases outside of Afghanistan.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:17
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Absurd Alhazred posted:US is withdrawing from Afghanistan in reverse technological order.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:26
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Absurd Alhazred posted:US is withdrawing from Afghanistan in reverse technological order. The guy has no idea what he's talking about. Russia employed strategic bombers in Syria, that's true! They specifically used these planes to drop a bunch of dumb bombs and cluster munitions from high altitude on predominately urban areas well behind the areas fighting was taking place. I don't think anyone gave a poo poo about them employing strategic bombers so much as the whole carpet bombing cities with zero attempt to even pretend to discriminate part. In contrast the US has been employing strategic bombers (B-52 and B-1B) in Iraq and Afghanistan on and off since the conflicts started as close air support planes that can hang around for a long time with a enough guided bombs to drop on whatever ground forces need blown up that day. So this isn't particularly noteworthy - and unless they start carpet bombing city blocks to flatten all the Afghan hospitals it doesn't seem to be comparable to what Russia drew criticism for.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:39
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Well, I like my dumb joke better than your explanations! 
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Aug 8, 2021 20:41
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I posted that because only the US has those, it shows that they are still bombing. the AAF has predators and such, but a B-52 means the US is still there.
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Aug 8, 2021 20:51
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Vasukhani posted:I posted that because only the US has those, it shows that they are still bombing. the AAF has predators and such, but a B-52 means the US is still there. The AAF definitely does not have preds…
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Aug 8, 2021 20:56
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LibCrusher posted:The AAF definitely does not have preds… yeh they dont
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Aug 8, 2021 21:58
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Well, I like my dumb joke better than your explanations! Didn't direct that at you so much as the twitter guy.
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Aug 8, 2021 22:15
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Aug 9, 2021 19:38
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Yeah, the B-52 is platform of choice because they'll have an aerial spotter like a fighter or JSTARs and the B-52 will drop one or two of its very large payload direct on target, then go back to orbiting waiting for the next drop.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:44
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CommieGIR posted:Yeah, the B-52 is platform of choice because they'll have an aerial spotter like a fighter or JSTARs and the B-52 will drop one or two of its very large payload direct on target, then go back to orbiting waiting for the next drop.
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Aug 10, 2021 00:22
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The fighting is all in cities now, and dropping that kind of ordinance on cities is still going to kill thousands more civilians, and at this point it will be essentially for nothing. Maybe it could have accomplished something a few months ago, before the government lost the north, but the Taliban offensive just keeps going. With the government now bogged down in Lashkar Gah , the Taliban were able to take Farah quickly, and have attacked two more northern provincial capitals.
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Aug 10, 2021 00:56
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It's ok, the US envoy to Afghanistan is going to really sternly tell the Taliban to stop winning the war:quote:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/10/us-envoy-in-doha-to-press-taliban-for-end-to-offensive The sullen acceptance that US goals in Afghanistan are completely hosed really comes through in the article.
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Aug 10, 2021 04:13
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Was there actually any good reason to invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11? I wonder what would've happened to Afghanistan had we not?
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Aug 10, 2021 05:15
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Grouchio posted:Was there actually any good reason to invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11? I wonder what would've happened to Afghanistan had we not? Arguably, if the purpose was very severely degrading Taliban / AQ ability to plan and launch attacks overseas, the combo of financial network attack/lockdown plus rather limited boots-on-ground (even if very hit and run) raids on key TB/AQ leadership networks early on did a very good job of wrecking their overseas projection capability. That was all accomplished very early on and then the game of ever-shifting goalposts kicked off plus Iraq and welp…
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Aug 10, 2021 05:51
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The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not groups you put a slash between when talking about planning attacks overseas or leadership networks.
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Aug 10, 2021 07:47
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Zedhe Khoja posted:The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not groups you put a slash between when talking about planning attacks overseas or leadership networks. In the extremely limited context of “I am furious at UBL and it’s 2001-2002”, yeah you probably do, because a fantasy about stopping the conflict in 2002 or maaaybe 2003 already stretches credulity enough without expecting a clear delibeation of AQ in Afghanistan vs TB. The key limitation would be “don’t chase regime change,” but it would definitely involve targeting TB actors and money.
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Aug 10, 2021 08:57
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Didn't the Taliban offer to provide Osama Bin Laden?
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Aug 10, 2021 15:32
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Didn't the Taliban offer to provide Osama Bin Laden? Only in a manner that had enough caveats to be completely and deliberately unacceptable.
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Aug 10, 2021 15:43
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Didn't the Taliban offer to provide Osama Bin Laden? Sort of, but yes, even before 9/11. The offer was to turn him over to a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to stand trial, but the US had little interest in that. Especially after 9/11 where America has one hell of an axe to grind, and ol' GW wants to show off how powerful Neoliberalism can be at forging a new empire.
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Aug 10, 2021 15:50
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Any country with similar capabilities would have invaded, and the near unanimity in the US supporting it even from generally anti-war voices proves it. The Taliban may not have been actively assisting OBL in striking at the West, but it was obviously aware that he'd done so already and intended to do so in the future before 9/11, so they shared culpability for allowing him to continue growing and training his network there. Deciding we could recreate the country as a Western style democracy after invading if we just sat there long enough was definitely hubris setting in though. The real gently caress up in terms of diplomatic options was not taking him when Sudan was ready to give him up. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 16:14
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Here's what we should have done post 9/11: nothing. That would have been the correct response.
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Aug 10, 2021 17:14
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Here's what we should have done post 9/11: nothing. Nah, we needed to do something. Virtually every last American wanted to do something. Were you old enough to remember 9/11?
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Aug 10, 2021 17:16
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If OBL stands trial in 2001-2002 and is found guilty of orchestrating the attacks through his own group and financing, how are you supposed to convince people that actually Iraq was involved and needs to be invaded? Comedy option: Iraq provides bases for the Coalition to invade SA.
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Aug 10, 2021 17:25
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