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Zero_Grade posted:One of the things I wonder about is how cohesive Afghanistan will be as a country after all this. The Taliban do seem to be effective at exerting control, but without the US as the big boogeyman in the picture, will that be able to remain in the face of tribal loyalties? I genuinely have no idea whether we'll see some kind of loose federation or gradual splintering into Balkans East. The Taliban 2011-2020 seem genuinely better at governing a multi-ethnic country than the 90s iteration 1990s Taliban was a Pushtun supremacist movement: that's why the northern alliance held out for so long: because the Taijiks/Ubzeks etc in the north didn't want to get massacred But over the last 10 years the Taliban had done a lot to win legitimacy with the non-Pushtun parts of Afghanistan, including appointing Tajiks/Ubzeks/harazas to positions of power within their shadow government. That's why the north fell so fast this time. But now that they won its' hard to say: there's already reports of Taliban imposing forced marriages on Haraza women etc. They could just revert to the way they were in the 90s now they don't need their wartime coalition as much.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:37
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Zero_Grade posted:One of the things I wonder about is how cohesive Afghanistan will be as a country after all this. The Taliban do seem to be effective at exerting control, but without the US as the big boogeyman in the picture, will that be able to remain in the face of tribal loyalties? I genuinely have no idea whether we'll see some kind of loose federation or gradual splintering into Balkans East. That will depend on how they approach the regional factions, bur the world is different now. Even Afghan tribal villages are getting plugged into global economic stream and someone has to manage that. Given the Amnesty order, general lack of violence on their part and even acceptance of women reporters in Kabul (as long as they cover their hair), this Taliban has been getting ready to play internationalist and has picked up on what things it needs to be a bit slacker on to manage that. They've built a lot of bridges dealing with corrupt ANA for local villages. If they work more to just keep internal economy and necessary infrastructure functioning, they wouldn't be any worse than the gulf states
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Aug 16, 2021 16:38
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Eric Cantonese posted:This is admittedly a big simplification, but Reagan won because he ran on a feel-good message about kicking rear end and not giving a poo poo about anybody else while Carter was giving buzzkill messages about national malaise and needing to conserve energy while presiding over a recession and wrestling with a hostage crisis. The fall of Saigon was just one signpost on the long road of humiliations the US went through in the 70s. Iran hostage crisis was obviously another one It made Reagan's feel-good message about America kicking rear end a lot more appealing. Aggressively confronting Communism was a major part of Reagan's campaign. It was a very trump-esque "we gotta start winning again" message. it's no accident the rise of neocons: people like cheney/rumsfield who ended up getting America in Afghanistan in the 2000s all took place in the 80s. quote:As far as how it affects Biden and the Dems, I don't know. It depends on how long the media sticks with this, I guess, which I would think gets linked to ratings.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:41
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Typo posted:The Taliban 2011-2020 seem genuinely better at governing a multi-ethnic country than the 90s iteration It's difficult for the Taliban to be much worse at governance than their 90s iteration. But to be frank they wouldn't have won this war without their effective political maneuvering. Not only becoming more multi-ethnic, but the ease of their capture of all the provincial capitals over the last week or two was a consequence of making deals with local tribal leaders and government officials and convincing them to defect. This might bode well for how well they'll do in power. But this is still Afghanistan, and we all know how difficult it is to govern. We'll see how functional the Taliban are once the big unifying force of the U.S. is gone.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:43
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fool of sound posted:Yeah, between the failure in Iraq and Syria and this embarrassing fiasco, it's hard to imagine faith in US militarism isn't going to be badly shaken. Probably not to a Vietnam level, since there's no draft to upset people and the military has a lot of influence over avenues of pop culture, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more cold war holdovers joining younger voters on the growing anti-interventionist bandwagon. I'm not so sure. These kinds of failed imperialist conflicts are good fodder for revanchism because the imperial military is never clearly defeated, it just fails to succeed. The hawks can always just argue that if we'd have just tried harder, sent more troops, used more violence, we would have been able to Defeat the Taliban once and for all. In their telling of the story, the failure to win is the fault of insufficiently-committed anti-war types who treacherously prevented the military from doing its best.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:47
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JesusSinfulHands posted:It's difficult for the Taliban to be much worse at governance than their 90s iteration. But to be frank they wouldn't have won this war without their effective political maneuvering. Not only becoming more multi-ethnic, but the ease of their capture of all the provincial capitals over the last week or two was a consequence of making deals with local tribal leaders and government officials and convincing them to defect. This might bode well for how well they'll do in power. yeah, could go either way, but I'd bet money on stability. You don't spend 20 years in the wilderness rebuilding without learning a lot, and that climb back up and this frankly astonishingly well executed offensive, even considering how corrupt the Afghan army was, really points to some very competent, realist commanders. Ideology of course always plays a part in policy but this wasn't an operation by zealots who think god will guide then to victory. They clearly have a plan
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Aug 16, 2021 16:47
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Eric Cantonese posted:As far as how it affects Biden and the Dems, I don't know. It depends on how long the media sticks with this, I guess, which I would think gets linked to ratings. All of the major media outlets, conservative and liberal deserve a good chunk of the blame since they were instrumental in us going into Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria etc. And then continually making the case as to why we just couldn't leave even when it was pretty obvious there was no clear mission goal or positive outcome. Now that everything has basically come apart in such a dramatic way, they look the other way and want to be totally blameless. If you look at the CNN front page now, it is entirely the fault of Joseph Biden, Barack Obama and the Democrats that everything that the entire course of the 'War on Terror' in the past 20 years has been basically for nothing. Not one mention of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or the cast of neocons that started it all and managed to squander every opportunity and every last bit of worldwide sympathy for the US over 9/11. There's a narrative the media wants to push now and they are making sure their conservative friends get in every last shot they can. Even Democratic leadership seems to be in massive disarray on how to spin it as a positive. After seeing helicopter evacuations that mimic the end of the Vietnam era and slapping every American in the face with it, I don't see how the public will forget this anytime soon.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:50
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https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1427296595666771973?s=20 https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1427292104263405571?s=20 CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 16:58
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NSFW warning -- video proof of afghans rushing to US evac planes and falling to their death. I'd love to see Biden explain how this was all a planned smooth and orderly transition. Didn't he say like a month ago he couldn't imagine Afghanistan falling so fast?
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Aug 16, 2021 17:05
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Appreciate the responses. That's the direction I was favoring, that two decades of deal making and working with the various regional ethnicities would indicate that the Taliban have matured into a more effective governing force (also yeah, it's a way different world in other respects than 2001). I suppose that's probably the best-case scenario at this point. Obviously still very, very early in the process though. Also still hoping we can get as many of the translators/related out. Give 'em all citizenship, cash, and 10 acres somewhere out west yes I know this is wishful thinking.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:07
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Typo fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 17:08
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fool of sound posted:Yeah, between the failure in Iraq and Syria and this embarrassing fiasco, it's hard to imagine faith in US militarism isn't going to be badly shaken. Probably not to a Vietnam level, since there's no draft to upset people and the military has a lot of influence over avenues of pop culture, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more cold war holdovers joining younger voters on the growing anti-interventionist bandwagon. One thing that we do have is a bit more visibility into how much all of this poo poo costs us both in dollars and missed opportunities.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:09
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This is some 28 Weeks Later type of poo poo, and I don't know how you return that airport back to functional status without violence. That airport could become a miniature quagmire of it's own as soldiers have to push the civilians back, and then bring in contractors to repair the infrastructure of fences/barriers around the facility, and then push further out to defend the contractors, etc.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:10
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The Grand Mufti of Oman has put out an official statement heaping praise and congrats on the Taliban calling it an 'Islamic Fatah' and a victory for all muslims, which might signal that Oman will be among the first countries to recognize the new Afghanistan government https://twitter.com/AlbertoMiguelF5/status/1427283881791741957?s=20
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Aug 16, 2021 17:15
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BetterToRuleInHell posted:NSFW warning -- video proof of afghans rushing to US evac planes and falling to their death. It's going to be a lovely explanation, but I'm pretty sure even the most pessimistic analyses being produced by the MIC complex and by our diplomatic staff and the Defense Department did not see the entire central government collapsing in less than 2 weeks. The Biden administration was in a no-win situation and, in hindsight, could and should have taken a lot more steps that would have made this situation much better, but it's a lot different planning a withdrawal over a one year, six month or even a three month period and doing something where you now have 2-3 days. Not that this excuses the Biden administration, but I'm pretty sure Trump did absolutely nothing to prep this specifically to increase the odds of this happening as it is right now. There's a whole debate about what it would have meant to shutter the embassy any earlier than they did due to fears that it would have accelerated the collapse. In hindsight, that was a cute exercise in narcissism, but even if you look at the CIA-SPAM/D&D betting pools on when the Taliban takeover would take place, I don't think anyone said August. And people from both parties just spent the last 20 years silencing or otherwise stifling the voices who were closest to seeing the timetable we're seeing right now. Whatever speech we're going to see this afternoon is going to have to be a good one, Joe.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:15
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Here is a ground view of it: https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1427202316512514050 I mean I guess falling off a plane is better than dying during torture, at least it's quick.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:19
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Eric Cantonese posted:The Biden administration was in a no-win situation and, in hindsight, could and should have taken a lot more steps that would have made this situation much better, but it's a lot different planning a withdrawal over a one year, six month or even a three month period and doing something where you now have 2-3 days. Not that this excuses the Biden administration, but I'm pretty sure Trump did absolutely nothing to prep this specifically to increase the odds of this happening as it is right now. Just out of curiosity, what could they have done in 3 months to 1 year that hadn't been done in the past 20?
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Aug 16, 2021 17:27
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ted hitler hunter posted:How likely is it that the U.S. will intentionally use biological warfare and spread Covid 19 or fund terrorist groups to destabilize the country as a way to try to contain perceived threats to the U.S. empire (Iran, Russia & China)? It seems more possible to me that after some time, the CIA will covertly provide support for the Taliban in exchange for the Taliban letting Uighur militants take safe harbor in Afghanistan as a means to undermine China. Seems like something that could totally happen.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:27
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Residency Evil posted:Just out of curiosity, what could they have done in 3 months to 1 year that hadn't been done in the past 20? Mostly getting anyone who wanted out a chance to get out. And slowly pulling the military back and such.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:29
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JesusSinfulHands posted:It seems more possible to me that after some time, the CIA will covertly provide support for the Taliban in exchange for the Taliban letting Uighur militants take safe harbor in Afghanistan as a means to undermine China. Seems like something that could totally happen. I think the Taliban are too smart to piss off China especially cuz you know: the US doesn't exactly seem like a reliable set of allies
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Aug 16, 2021 17:30
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Dapper_Swindler posted:Mostly getting anyone who wanted out a chance to get out. And slowly pulling the military back and such. Ah, gotcha. I thought he was talking about avoiding the collapse of the government.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:31
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Residency Evil posted:Just out of curiosity, what could they have done in 3 months to 1 year that hadn't been done in the past 20? I was thinking of getting the SIV visa numbers up and setting up processes to make sure they were evaluated and issued super quickly. Also, we should have started setting up places in close-by neighboring countries a long time ago (I think it was possible) so Afghan allies weren't applying for the visas in a goddamn besieged airport (or stranded and hiding in some isolated rural hinterland) surrounded by the Taliban. Also, it would have been a lot better to gradually (but expeditiously) withdraw embassy personnel out of the country without expediting the central government's downfall. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I think Biden's was destined to eating a big poo poo sandwich the moment he stuck to withdrawing troops.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:33
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Residency Evil posted:Ah, gotcha. I thought he was talking about avoiding the collapse of the government. I believe pentagon and the wonks all deluded each other and themselves into believing that it was gonna be a Vietnam situation and it would take a year or so. But a mix of the taliban learning and trump and pompeo basically giving them a gently caress ton of dudes back as well as other poo poo basically hastened the end.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:41
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:yeah, could go either way, but I'd bet money on stability. You don't spend 20 years in the wilderness rebuilding without learning a lot, and that climb back up and this frankly astonishingly well executed offensive, even considering how corrupt the Afghan army was, really points to some very competent, realist commanders. Ideology of course always plays a part in policy but this wasn't an operation by zealots who think god will guide then to victory. They clearly have a plan Seems the US policy of nation building worked.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:41
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Private Speech posted:Here is a ground view of it: Taliban is offering Amnesty, and so far seem to be honoring their proclamations. These people either don't know or don't trust what's been said by Taliban, but as of right now, most of the civilian deaths reported are FUBAR Kabul airport evacuation by US forces and civilian staff
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Aug 16, 2021 17:43
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Eric Cantonese posted:I was thinking of getting the SIV visa numbers up and setting up processes to make sure they were evaluated and issued super quickly. Also, we should have started setting up places in close-by neighboring countries a long time ago (I think it was possible) so Afghan allies weren't applying for the visas in a goddamn besieged airport (or stranded and hiding in some isolated rural hinterland) surrounded by the Taliban. This and honestly despite the horror show. I am glad Biden is sticking to it and continuing pulling out. I could see trump and even Obama stopping at this point and trying to renegage and get even more folks killed and turn it into a worse quagmire.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:44
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IT BURNS posted:Not saying that your traumatic wartime experiences are here for our amusement/entertainment, but I'd like to hear more about your time there based on your past few posts. I think we could all agree that this outcome was inevitable, but the human experiences along the way make it more real for more people to understand how it was doomed from the start. Honestly, talking helps. These last few days I've had a rush of emotions coming back. Most of the people of Afghanistan aren't bad. They are no different than you or I, they just want the best life they can have for them and their families. The cultures are completely different mind you, but the wants of the same thing are there. To talk about the failures you have to look at the mission. At first it was about catching Bin Laden. When that failed, the goal post moved to nation building and winning the "hearts and minds". This was an attempt to clamp down on extremism. This was an impossible task on its surface, mainly because of the cultural differences. Go watch the documentary "Restrepo", and there is a glaring example of this when the commander is having a meeting with the elders. The commander is trying to talk about how he is trying to build roads, and bring prosperity to the people. The elders wanted to discuss the things that were happening to Muslims in Iraq at the time. The visible frustration that commander showed is pretty indicative of what was really going on. They didn't want roads, or clinics. They wanted to live their lives in peace. Then they had the most powerful military in the world telling them they wanted roads, and better access to water. These people have been living on the sides of those mountains for thousands of years, they were just fine. I was an aviation guy. Our main mission was supporting the guys on the ground. The guys on the ground mission was primarily supporting and defending the construction works that were happening in the area. I poo poo you not, the mission was simply to be shot at so they could clearly see who the enemy was. Once there was positive identification of the enemy, then we could go in and kill or capture. Every now and again we would get some intel and make an offensive assault somewhere, but primarily we played the part of bait to pull the enemy out of hiding. The problem was, has, and always will be that there are plenty of fish in the sea. The war was always going to come down to who had the greater resolve. The Taliban was at home, and we were half a world away. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the outcome of that. The entire operation was a cluster gently caress from the start. The ANA was never going to a capable fighting force without the US leading. Anyone who spent any time with the ANA knew that, no matter what the reports that were sent up, or the bullet point on some commanders officer evaluation report said. As I said in a previous post, the politicians didn't want that poo poo to hit the fan on their watch and the message was always "stay the course". For me personally, I went in to the military not because of some since of duty. I didn't have poo poo, wasn't going to get poo poo, and going into the military was the quickest way for me to get to middle class. I would also say, a large majority of the people I was with were in the same boat. I joined in 2007, during "the surge". I knew full well I was heading to war so I wasn't naive about it. Where I was naive was that what I was doing was making a difference, and helping the people of Afghanistan. The commanders, and the odd General that would come by would always hammer that home, that what we were doing was making a difference. Only the perspective of me being there and experiencing it, seeing the futility of it, made me question if that was really the truth. I guess the scenes that we are all seeing coming from Afghanistan over the past couple of days is the conformation of that. Frainkly, it's sad. It was inevitable. The hard work of hundreds of thousands of people, the loss of life, the people who are going to be oppressed. It's tragic. I'm just as helpless now, as when I was when I was in Afghanistan.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:44
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Taliban is offering Amnesty, and so far seem to be honoring their proclamations. These people either don't know or don't trust what's been said by Taliban, but as of right now, most of the civilian deaths reported are FUBAR Kabul airport evacuation by US forces and civilian staff They're also going door-to-door rounding up people, according to reports by just about all media outlets. e: I mean there's no bloody corpses on video just yet, but looking at their long history up to the very recent killings of western-aligned activists, translators, journalists, police/judiciary officials and politicians I would definitely be running away if it were me in one of those categories. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 17:46
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Private Speech posted:They're also going door-to-door rounding up people, according to reports by just about all media outlets. we will see. They are clearly angling for international legitimacy, a massacre would be a poor way to start I can understand people not trusting it. But again, as of yet, US is has killed more civilians. Typo posted:I think if you are an Afghan who worked with the US you'd be an idiot to trust the Taliban's promise of amnesty definitely a possibility this is all a feint and these people are done for as soon as the international eye is off them. Certainly that's the historical precedent in these situations Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 17:51
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Taliban is offering Amnesty, and so far seem to be honoring their proclamations. These people either don't know or don't trust what's been said by Taliban, but as of right now, most of the civilian deaths reported are FUBAR Kabul airport evacuation by US forces and civilian staff I think if you are an Afghan who worked with the US you'd be an idiot to trust the Taliban's promise of amnesty Ron Paul Atreides posted:we will see, Taliban is not Isis and they are angling for open diplomacy with neighbours. A massacre would be a poor way to start out Outside of Kabul where the vast majority of the population have little/no contact with the US I think are not gonna get killed, even most ANA soldiers can probably count on surrendering as long as they didn't fight very hard. But Kabul is the heart of the US-backed regime, there's plenty of political opponents of the Taliban and people who worked -a lot- with the US and ANA commandos etc who caused a lot of problems for the new regime over the last 10 years. I do not think this set of people is likely to get away scott free. Typo fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 17:52
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https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1427312023910682630?s=20
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Aug 16, 2021 17:53
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Private Speech posted:They're also going door-to-door rounding up people, according to reports by just about all media outlets. This. I think the taliban learned that they can’t start stoning or shooting folks in public yet. So it’s all gonna be out of site for now. They want an actual government and poo poo after all.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:53
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Typo posted:I think if you are an Afghan who worked with the US you'd be an idiot to trust the Taliban's promise of amnesty
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Aug 16, 2021 17:56
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Even then this from 2 weeks ago: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/30/afghanistan-mounting-taliban-revenge-killings Human Rights Watch posted:(New York) – Taliban forces in Afghanistan are targeting known critics for attack despite claiming that they have ordered their fighters to act with restraint, Human Rights Watch said today. In Kandahar, the Taliban have been detaining and executing suspected members of the provincial government and security forces, and in some cases their relatives.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:57
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This. The only people who care are the neocons/brookings ghouls and the pundit class and the various gop dipshits politicians who 180 on things constantly. The various moderates I know irl are just happy we left or don’t care. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 17:57
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the former Kabul government btw, was brutal towards the taliban remnants when they were winning in the early 2000s peace offers got responded to with brutal torture of Taliban members etc there's a lot of bad blood between the old Kabul regime and the new one. History suggests a brutal purge of the previous political order is upcoming. But the core of the old political order was always a very small % of overall population. Actual number of brutal executions might actually be relative low.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:57
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Discospawn posted:Counterpoint: If you are an Afghan who worked with the US you're probably a bit of an idealist (or gullible or bad at decision making if you want to be more cynical about it). Actually I think most of the ones who did it probably just wanted to get paid and feed their families in a country without much of an economy and the vast majority are in poverty, not out of some higher political idealism
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Aug 16, 2021 17:58
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Dapper_Swindler posted:This. I think the taliban learned that they can’t start stoning or shooting folks in public yet. So it’s all gonna be out of site for now. They want an actual government and poo poo after all. yeah I think the executions are gonna be done in a dark prison cell and buried in unmarked mass graves
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Aug 16, 2021 17:59
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Discospawn posted:Counterpoint: If you are an Afghan who worked with the US you're probably a bit of an idealist (or gullible or bad at decision making if you want to be more cynical about it). alternatively you're desperate and need money, the way workers take dangerous jobs all over the world
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Aug 16, 2021 18:01
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I have had a lot of raised eyebrows at the American media during this whole fiasco. They seem to want to fit a narrative here of Biden being responsible for the failures of Afghanistan OR that he will bare the consequences of it. And, I just don't see it fitting. I think the speed of the decline obviously caught them off guard but the fact the Taliban is at least showing that they aren't going to mess with Americans as they leave shows me there is SOME diplomatic measures going on between the two parties. I get that bothsides is the standard function of American media but it feels they are trying to force this to be an issue that Joe Biden is responsible for as President. Obviously Biden is trying to cut off the bad press by addressing the nation today and hopefully that will close the book on narratives about "his failure" but I just find the coverage of this, bizarrely out of synch. Note: this doesn't mean that Biden didn't fail to protect Afghani's who supported the United States but that isn't what the narrative feels like.
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Aug 16, 2021 18:11
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