Gazpacho posted:

fyi people had to be evacuated by helicopter from Vietnam specifically because the ambassador in charge, Graham Martin, was completely freaking clueless and twiddled his thumbs while the NVA set up its positions around Saigon

Gazpacho posted:

fyi people had to be evacuated by helicopter from Vietnam specifically because the ambassador in charge, Graham Martin, was completely freaking clueless and twiddled his thumbs while the NVA set up its positions around Saigon

Fleetwood posted:

lol I've never seen the movie but would for sure watch that interview

sullat posted:

IIRC from the book "The Sympathizer" they were also evacuated by plane from the airport.

sullat posted:

If they're captured from an American base, wouldn't they be F350s and be absolutely useless anywhere where there are no paved roads?

sullat posted:

If they're captured from an American base, wouldn't they be F350s and be absolutely useless anywhere where there are no paved roads?

quote:

Trucks, Vehicles and Jeeps (1854, of which destroyed: 102, captured: 1752)

330 M-1151 HMMWV
360 M-1152 HMMWV
6 International M1224 MaxxPro
761 Ford Ranger
283 Navistar International 7000 series
6 Armoured Navistar International 7000 series
7 Navistar International 7000 series recovery vehicle
3 Navistar International 7000 bus
8 Ford Cargo dump truck
7 M915A3
77 ATV
4 Front/Skid loader
1 Bulldozer
1 Excavator

quote:

...

The lack of transparency of the ANDSF’s fraught personnel system is perhaps most viscerally captured in a report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, is that of “ghost soldiers” — troops that are paid, equipped, and trained on the Pentagon’s dime, but don’t actually exist. The new SIGAR report found that of the nearly 350,000 ANDSF troops that are on the payroll, nearly 200,000 of them are ghost soldiers, with the money likely being distributed among corrupt government officials.

“All districts receive central government budget to cover salaries of front-line forces,” reporter Jessica Purkiss wrote for the Bureau. “In many areas in Afghanistan, some of this budget disappears and the actual number of officers tasked with holding back the Taliban is much lower than the number actually allotted.”

....

The phenomenon is not surprising. Inflating troop numbers allows for additional funding, equipment, and support personnel — enabling the corruption that incapacitates the ANDSF. Weapons, in particular, are one of the ways SIGAR has been able to track the impact of ghost soldiers: In 2014, a SIGAR report showed that 203,888 of the 474,823 weapons with serial numbers recorded in the Afghan National Security Forces’ Operational Verification of Reliable Logistics Oversight Database (OVERLORD), “(43 percent), were missing information and/or were duplicative.” No one knows what happened to them in any official capacity, according to a 2014 Gawker report.

The ghost soldier phenomenon can also be seen on smaller scales in provinces throughout the country. In 2016, the Helmand police chief, Aqa Noor Kintoz, reported he believes that half of his force are ghosts. There are roughly 10,000 police personnel in Helmand, 16,000 army soldiers, and an unknown number of public protection forces and border security forces, Kintoz told Afghanistan’s TOLO news, adding that some 50% simply “did not exist physically when we asked for help during operations.” And according to the Bureau report, council members in the Nawa district of the Helmand province — a locale that at one point was an example of what success would like like in the Global War on Terror — fell to the Taliban because the district’s estimated 700 police were closer to 300.

...

Danann posted:

It's Ford Rangers and Humvees all the way down: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2021/06/disaster-at-hand-documenting-afghan.html

Danann posted:

So since 2017 about 2/3 of the ANSDF literally only exists on spreadsheets: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/nobody-knows-many-afghan-security-forces-really-exist-us-cant-fix/

This back in 2017, now I think it's questionable if the ANSDF even breaks 10,000 actually existing people.

Apraxin posted:

- competent elements in military leadership saying they need to pull their troops back to consolidate strength and being overruled by the government demanding that hold every inch of territory and keep tens of thousands of men in isolated, surrounded garrisons where their control ended at the base walls

Danann posted:

Taliban are now only 20km away from Kabul.

Ardennes posted:

I wonder how much old Soviet armor/heavy equipment the Taliban is going to be able to bag this time. I know some of it was captured by the Northern alliance and I heard at least some Hinds were being restored.

Also it seems like the ANSDF was equipped to fail with mostly Ford pickup trucks and Humvees. It was always a Potemkin project.

Sad Billionaire posted:

Oxford scholar Chelsea Clinton was among a group of American students which interrupted an anti-war meeting in the city, it is reported.

The former US president's daughter arrived at the meeting at Oxford Town Hall with a dozen friends who heckled speakers, according to The Times.

Members of the group shouted patriotic slogans and unfurled a Stars and Stripes flag at the event attended by 500 people, the paper reports.

quote:

The student organiser for the Stop the War coalition, Helen Salmon, said the whole incident at Oxford was "hilarious".

Sad Billionaire posted:

Oxford scholar Chelsea Clinton was among a group of American students which interrupted an anti-war meeting in the city, it is reported.

Pryor on Fire posted:

This picture is great



New life goal: Rifle Room

BitcoinRockefeller posted:

oops, not a morning show host, it was good ole jake tapper. he of course immediately backs down when the guy gets mad, it's toward the end. the comments are something else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLDLGxxd-NI

Jetto Jagga posted:

I just learned the other day about what a clusterfuck that operation was and how epically full of the poo poo the movie was

Pryor on Fire posted:

I can't imagine heroine production decreasing under the Taliban, that was like half their revenue back in the day.

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

whomp
https://twitter.com/Paktyaw4l/status/1426329753460645888

quote:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A human rights group in Afghanistan said Monday it was probing a shooting last week in which CIA-trained Afghan forces reportedly killed 20 civilians during an anti-Taliban operation in eastern Khost province.

The development comes as Washington is trying to negotiate a reduction in violence between the Taliban and Afghan government forces.

The reports first surfaced on Sunday, when residents from the province's Saberi district said pro-government forces — the so-called intelligence special forces — killed several civilians, including women and children. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said it launched an investigation.
...
The CIA-trained Afghan special forces have in the past been accused of repeated attacks on civilians and have been called out by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations for their often heavy-handed tactics that have left civilians dead. They operate with seeming impunity under Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, and hold nondescript names like Unit 01 or Khost Protection Forces. HRW and several U.N. reports have held them partly responsible for the rising civilian deaths and rights abuses.

Ardennes posted:

Also, there will probably will have to be an alternative source of income for certain "groups" that c-spam is familiar with.

Pryor on Fire posted:

I can't imagine heroine production decreasing under the Taliban, that was like half their revenue back in the day.

quote:

In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the UN to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time.[17] The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2002.

Skyelan posted:

BitcoinRockefeller posted:

oops, not a morning show host, it was good ole jake tapper. he of course immediately backs down when the guy gets mad, it's toward the end. the comments are something else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLDLGxxd-NI

shyduck posted:

WE 'RE BACK

https://twitter.com/WeesaDaily/status/1426374914756521989?s=19