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Herstory Begins Now posted:I'm certainly not saying that 100% of people believed that, just that the people making the relevant decisions clearly considered it a very real possibility based on the scale of (and quality of) forces mobilized to Kabul basically overnight. You are correct (thankfully) that the people directly advising the decision makers in the US considered it as a real possibility and were pretty quick to recognize poo poo was falling apart and respond. Just pointing out that even among groups generally considered "experts" there were some amazingly out of touch people even after events had already taken place. Knowing the individuals in question I figured it was personal bias and the resulting narrowing of what they considered reliable sources to build their analysis on. The same thing happened with the Russian invasion on a larger scale, with a good number of analysts just refusing to accept what was happening in front of them because it didn't fit, even after the invasion was well underway. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Feb 5, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 16:49
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Yeah I think Afghanistan likely has the most extreme disconnect between what was actually happening and ostensibly expert opinion or consensus of any conflict the US has been involved in in decades. There were so many experts who didn't speak a word of dari or pashto or any of the other regionally relevant languages and a lot of them were simply too far physically removed from what was actually happening and information was passing through too many intermediaries that what was actually making it through was, in many cases, almost complete garbage. There also seemed to be a mountain of conflicted interests, whether it was financial, professional, emotional, or pride. Ironically, and indeed similar actually to the Russia-Ukraine situation: a lot of people were operating on very out of date information. Afghanistan's security situation plummeted under Trump and nearly every extant problem grew significantly worse in that time. Basically the Afghan security services of 2021 was in no way the Afghan security services of 2015. Neither were the Taliban. Ironically I think some people took the exact wrong lesson from misjudging Afghanistan and then promptly applied that to Ukraine, too. I got curious and looked back at some predictions I'd made a few days before the fall and it's kind of interesting to see again. I'm definitely not an expert on Afghanistan, but I had talked to a lot of people with extensive first hand experience with the ANA and ANP in a variety of capacities. A few things were basically universal: ANP were a human rights dumpsterfire, they were widely feared and/or hated, almost no one on any side wanted to hand prisoners over to the ANP and they were involved in so many of the most hosed up things you hear about in Afghanistan. ANA were almost universally described as an unmotivated, largely ineffective (outside of a small handful of motivated units), highly corrupt nearly non-factor in the overall security situation. Among Afghanistan vets in particular the more or less consensus I'd run into was that ANA will fold the moment US support is withdrawn. Which, yknow, makes sense: ANA's logistics situation was almost entirely handled by the US. Even if there was the will to fight, once ANA units stop getting fuel or ammunition deliveries, what does anyone really expect them to do? Herstory Begins Now posted:Kabul falls basically whenever the taliban factions come together to decide when they want it to fall. Before that can happen they need a bit of time to build resources up in the region and they likely have some interest in giving american and europeans some time unmolested to pull their people and materiel out; as in why would you potentially get in the way of your enemy finally packing up and leaving after 20 years? Easier to just give them a week to pull out and to use the time for your own planning and build up. There might be some interest in pushing things faster, but especially after the US deployed more people to protect the withdrawal, there's a lot less reason to think actually attacking fleeing people is going to speed up the foreign powers efforts to gtfo. Hell there's probably room for some good deals in this for the taliban where they can bargain for reduced american opposition to their efforts for international recognition if they agree not to attack the withdrawal. Or some amount of no strings attached aid or any number of other things. Both sides have things the other wants. I remain extremely curious what the back-end conversations between the Taliban and the US were like during the withdrawal. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 17:56
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I mean to me it’s comparable to Vietnam and the US gov routinely overestimating the capability of the South Vietnamese Army Although you can also argue that they knew the whole time how bad it was and just covered it up
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Feb 4, 2023 18:38
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Wrong thread
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Feb 4, 2023 23:05
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FlamingLiberal posted:I mean to me it’s comparable to Vietnam and the US gov routinely overestimating the capability of the South Vietnamese Army Plausible for both wars!
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Feb 4, 2023 23:43
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Weren't the Pentagon Papers all about how completely futile the entanglement in Vietnam was?
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Feb 5, 2023 01:17
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Weren't the Pentagon Papers all about how completely futile the entanglement in Vietnam was? no, if i recall correctly the main reason they were so explosive was they showed that several presidential administrations had secretly ramped up the american presence in vietnam and surrounding countries will lying to the public and congress about their actions
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Feb 5, 2023 01:54
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9 to 5 job is more demoralizing than constant day and night overwatch by drones armed with ninja missiles
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Feb 5, 2023 16:24
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OctaMurk posted:9 to 5 job is more demoralizing than constant day and night overwatch by drones armed with ninja missiles Can confirm
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Feb 5, 2023 16:46
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A central asian tribesman leaving the life of the saddle and becoming a bureaucrat of a recently conquered city. Truly an ageless tale.
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Feb 5, 2023 19:42
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Genghis Khan, MBA - now streaming on apple tv
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Feb 5, 2023 20:03
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OctaMurk posted:9 to 5 job is more demoralizing than constant day and night overwatch by drones armed with ninja missiles Come to think of it, I've got an idea for how to make 9 to 5 office jobs more exciting
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Feb 5, 2023 20:36
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have the taliban tried dog-friendly workplaces? casual fridays? occasional pizza parties can break up the tedium
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Feb 5, 2023 20:52
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They might consider introducing some offsite teambuilding activities, like stoning women and/or homosexuals
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Feb 5, 2023 21:31
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Sounds like they need an HR dept to organize all this stuff
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Feb 5, 2023 22:08
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"human resources?" *points at throne of skulls*
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Feb 5, 2023 23:21
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Wasn't a key part of the Taliban's success that they were actually better at handling local bureaucracy than the official Afghan government?
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Feb 5, 2023 23:58
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Darth Walrus posted:Wasn't a key part of the Taliban's success that they were actually better at handling local bureaucracy than the official Afghan government? Yeah I suspect they weren't better at pushing paper, but were just less corrupt. So their tax collectors would collect tax and not rob you, their police would hang criminals, that sort of thing. Most of the Afghan government, especially outside Kabul, was just a money-funnelling scheme for elites.
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Feb 6, 2023 01:20
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huge quake in SE Turkey, I think 7.8 would be the largest magnitude on record https://twitter.com/USGS_Quakes/status/1622407107416043520
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Feb 6, 2023 02:51
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Really awful place for it to hit too
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Feb 6, 2023 03:23
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Flavahbeast posted:Really awful place for it to hit too Hit at night when people were inside and sleeping. CNN reports at least 34 buildings collapsed so far.
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Feb 6, 2023 05:32
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Feb 6, 2023 08:51
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That uh. That seems pretty big.
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Feb 6, 2023 08:52
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Already over 500 dead  https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/06/turkey-earthquake-2023-live-updates-quake-tremor-latest-news
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Feb 6, 2023 09:04
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Charlz Guybon posted:Already over 500 dead This poo poo is awful. There will be a lot more than 500 deaths. And it's not just Turkey, Syria was affected as well.
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Feb 6, 2023 10:07
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Torrannor posted:This poo poo is awful. There will be a lot more than 500 deaths. And it's not just Turkey, Syria was affected as well.
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Feb 6, 2023 10:48
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mobby_6kl posted:This is looking pretty horrific, up to 640 already according to a new update from the Guardian there. It's morning now so I imagine they'll be discovering more and more victims now On BBC international they just said that Edragon just said in a speech that the number is 912 now
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Feb 6, 2023 11:17
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This thread is collating videos and photographs https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1622432268026318851 The current official count in Turkey is 912 dead, 5385 wounded, with 2470 rescued and 2818 collapsed buildings. At least 300+ are dead in Idlib, Syria, according to local counts.
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Feb 6, 2023 11:28
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There's just been a second earthquake https://twitter.com/anadoluagency/status/1622548650034401280 This film crew was broadcasting live when it happened: https://twitter.com/oztrk_aydn/status/1622548031366221826
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Feb 6, 2023 11:55
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WTF...that is worse case scenario right there
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Feb 6, 2023 12:20
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syria number could easily get really, really high between the sheer quantity of damaged buildings and repairs over the last decade, and the nearly total collapse of the civil state in that period (as in building code enforcement has very much not been a priority for the last decade) man what a disaster that the region really, truly did not need  Brown Moses posted:This film crew was broadcasting live when it happened: jesus that's horrible Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 12:29
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Jesus I can hardly thing of a worse place and time for this to happen. Immediate disaster of two massive earthquakes plus people left homeless in the middle of winter. Apparently some places in Turkey still haven't reported in from last night presumably because communications have been severed, so god only knows what the situation is in Syria. Also risk of tsunamis in the Mediterranean if there are any big landslides. There have already been smaller ones in Cyprus this morning.
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Feb 6, 2023 12:32
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A second strong earthquake arriving just as people are finally trying to find survivors in already unstable buildings/rubble... 
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Feb 6, 2023 12:57
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Yeah, this crossed my feed this morning. a nearby building collapses as people are trying to dig people out of one from the first earthquake: https://i.imgur.com/198tXDf.mp4
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Feb 6, 2023 16:49
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Kalli posted:Yeah, this crossed my feed this morning. a nearby building collapses as people are trying to dig people out of one from the first earthquake: Up to ~1500 reported in Turkey and 800 in Syria so far. Some good developments though: https://twitter.com/PrimeministerGR/status/1622630851128225792 quote:The Turkish government declined Elon Musk’s proposal to send a satellite broadband service to the country after the strongest earthquake to hit the country in decades. E: drone footage. It's pretty hosed. https://i.imgur.com/K0ZGHE3.mp4 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 18:14
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This was a bad day, this poo poo makes me feel depressed. I send a couple bucks to the THW when I saw they were sending help soon.
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Feb 6, 2023 21:46
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Kalli posted:Yeah, this crossed my feed this morning. a nearby building collapses as people are trying to dig people out of one from the first earthquake: I think you can see people on the upper floors as that building went down. Edit: it looks like the second earthquake had quite a bit more total energy than the 1st did. Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 21:53
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a post: I'm not sure who these folks are but these numbers sound a lot more realistic to me, given 2 earthquakes comparable to 1999 over a massive region with awful construction https://twitter.com/risklayer/status/1622728877868191744 I hope people consider Syria too, and of course the large Kurdish and Arab populations straddling the region. Pics from nyt showing affected areas for each quake respectfully:   https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/06/world/turkey-earthquake-damage.html It's so bad!!! Don't look on social media for posts made by people stuck underneath as they were making them, horrible screams.
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Feb 7, 2023 01:36
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Confirmed so far...quote:Death toll passes 4,300 in 24 hours
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Feb 7, 2023 06:10
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