|
This is primarily focused on the failure of the US in Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of the US puppet regime to the Taliban, but you can take some context from the fall of other US puppet regimes like the South Vietnamese Government, the fall of the First Korean Republic, etc. There's a long documented failure of the US to effectively build regimes, the Afghanistan failure is just one more in a long line.
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 13:30 |
|
|
the thing that is strangest to untangle about this is that we've been at war in afghanistan since i was literally a child. decades of trillions of dollars pissed off to war profiteers and hegemonic examples of regulatory capture, untold deaths and misery, to accomplish nothing but the saigon-esque resurgence of the literal taliban and all the theocratic horrors they will unravel. it's a complete failure, a human atrocity from beginning to end, but also, in a measurable sense, relief
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:34
|
|
|
Why were we there, again?
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:34
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? i forgot
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:35
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? We told you not to forget! 
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:35
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? Rumsfeld, mostly.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:35
|
|
IT BURNS posted:Rumsfeld, mostly. May he rest in piss.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:36
|
|
|
I always thought it was funny how in Sherlock, which takes place in modern times, they could still make Watson an Afghanistan veteran like he was in the original books
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:36
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? Needed something to do while we spun up the case for war in Iraq
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:37
|
|
|
IT BURNS posted:Rumsfeld, mostly. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/how-donald-rumsfeld-deserves-be-remembered/619334/ quote:In 2006, soon after I returned from my fifth reporting trip to Iraq for The New Yorker, a pair of top aides in the George W. Bush White House invited me to lunch to discuss the war. This was a first; until then, no one close to the president would talk to me, probably because my writing had not been friendly and the administration listened only to what it wanted to hear. But by 2006, even the Bush White House was beginning to grasp that Iraq was closer to all-out civil war than to anything that could be called “freedom.” written before the calamitous collapse of his last little passion project but never more timely as a result!
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:37
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? In 2001 it was largely pitched as a mission to hunt down Bin Laden and not much else. The pretext of "spreading democracy" or whatever the poo poo came a bit later when we still didn't have Bin Laden but were still over there.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:38
|
|
|
sean10mm posted:In 2001 it was largely pitched as a mission to hunt down Bin Laden and not much else. The pretext of "spreading democracy" or whatever the poo poo came a bit later when we still didn't have Bin Laden but were still over there. ooh, even more relevance quote:within a few hours, [Rumsfeld] was already entertaining catastrophic ideas, according to notes taken by an aide: “best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].” And later: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” These fragments convey the whole of Rumsfeld: his decisiveness, his aggression, his faith in hard power, his contempt for procedure. In the end, it didn’t matter what the intelligence said. September 11 was a test of American will and a chance to show it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:39
|
|
|
Regalingualius posted:Why were we there, again? Imperialism is like a box of chocolates. If you stop eating, it's over.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:40
|
|
|
sean10mm posted:In 2001 it was largely pitched as a mission to hunt down Bin Laden and not much else. The pretext of "spreading democracy" or whatever the poo poo came a bit later when we still didn't have Bin Laden but were still over there. Depending on who you believe about information that has yet to be declassified, the Battle of Tora Bora blew that casus belli right out of the water.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:43
|
|
|
Facetiousness aside, though… gently caress, I feel awful for the people who helped us who are about to get lynched.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:43
|
|
|
Staluigi posted:ooh, even more relevance Yeah, and to be clear I was more describing the propaganda line so to speak. W's wars were bullshit all the way down Another random thing Rumsfeld was terrible about was logistics. The Army is normally amazing at moving shitloads of people and stuff around, and Rumsfeld deliberately made them scrap their own logistics plans for some poo poo he made up on the back of a napkin that created a total shitshow. The sad thing is the Army brass recognized everything about what Rumsfeld wanted to do was bullshit, but the top generals (except Shinseki IIRC, who was somewhat truthful to congress and got sidelined for it) just went along with it to further their careers. Cobra II is a great book if you want to get super mad about the spin up of the Iraq invasion & occupation in ways you didn't even think of! Rumsfeld was a piece of poo poo about LITERALLY EVERYTHING down to the smallest details he messed with.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:43
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/adegrandpre/status/1427053772103196674?s=20
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:46
|
|
|
I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. I would exclude stuff like Japan and Germany because they had long histories of state capacity, but maybe it's wrong to exclude them from the discussion.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:50
|
|
|
Staluigi posted:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/how-donald-rumsfeld-deserves-be-remembered/619334/ From what I understand, Rumsfeld was really for the "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am," school of invasion with no occupation afterwards while Condileeza was heavily in favor of surges, and then Bush opted for the middle with a soft occupational force that mostly let mercs run around which was the main reason why the Shi'ite Uprising was so bloody especially for contractors. Am I getting that right, or am I off on that, because as immoral as Rumsfeld's approach is, holy hell is it at least more defensible than Bush's compromise that was just the worst of both wrolds.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:53
|
|
|
I think it's pretty obvious that the ostensible government that the US set up enjoyed minimal popular support, and the populace was keenly aware that it couldn't possibly survive without the US military present. It was an obvious puppet regime and I suspect that they were seen as toadies, possibly sellouts or traitors. I think that's also the issue with regime change in general; you can't make friends with a gun in your hand. Even if there is substantial opposition to the prior government, it's painfully obvious that the US never intends its puppets to have meaningful sovereignty; they're barely disguised imperial holdings and it turns out the sorts of people who will rebel against a tyrannical government are the same people who will rebel against an imperial suzerain. Ultimately, effective regime change and nation building requires a degree of self-determination that imperial powers are nearly universally unwilling to grant them. Have there been any successful imperial nation building projects in the last century? Israel I suppose, for a given value of successful, but even that require constant external support to maintain itself.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:54
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. Soviet afghanistan arguably had much stronger and significantly less corrupt government, not that it prevented it from losing to the CIA-backed mujahideen.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 00:57
|
|
|
Probably Magic posted:From what I understand, Rumsfeld was really for the "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am," school of invasion with no occupation afterwards while Condileeza was heavily in favor of surges, and then Bush opted for the middle with a soft occupational force that mostly let mercs run around which was the main reason why the Shi'ite Uprising was so bloody especially for contractors. Am I getting that right, or am I off on that, because as immoral as Rumsfeld's approach is, holy hell is it at least more defensible than Bush's compromise that was just the worst of both wrolds. On september 10th, 2001 Rumsfeld gave a speech to various assembled generals and what not berating them for not being out of the "cold war mindset." he thought the whole notion of large armies, occupations, bilateral strategizing etc was completely outdated. he believes the future of warfare were very small, tight, highly trained, highly technical attack units that could quickly neutralize enemy infrastructure without needing to do an invasion proper. then, the attacked nation would just kinda <gestures broadly> and everything would work itself out. he got his opportunity to test out this theory almost immediately
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:00
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. The first one that comes to mind for some reason is the NATO peacekeeping mission (IFOR/SFOR) in Bosnia. It was a functioning state before it blew up, but it split like 5 ways and had a multi-axis war crime race war jamboree going on for years before it got under control so by the end it was a total shitshow with (proportionally) a massive body count. The difference is the factions signed on to a peace accord FIRST, and agreed to have peacekeepers there to enforce it, with the idea that NATO (with UN approval) would basically keep any one group from loving up any other group. Also the number of troops relative to the size/population of Bosnia started out super high, like 60,000 or something I think (20,000 US). There was no pretext of creating something out of nothing, but to prevent any faction from doing anything militarily in general while rebuilding went on. I think the body count of sean10mm fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Aug 16, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:01
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. Don't think you can include Japan and Germany if we're removing crimes against humanity. Terror bombings are most definitely warcrimes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:02
|
|
|
There are a lot of KMT in 1949 parallels with the Afghan government here too. Lots of forced conscription to beef up soldier numbers that turned out to lead to an army with no fighting willpower. Lots of corruption where US weapons ended up in CCP hands or various soldiers while leaders hoarded goods and enriched themselves. The CCP just flowing freely through the rural areas and cutting off the KMT-controlled cities. Chiang Kai-Shek's incompetence completely surprising everyone due to his rather unearned prestige on the international scene. You could draw historical parallels to all sorts of downfalls though. I just thought the 1949 parallel hasn't been fully explored yet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:03
|
|
|
Sedisp posted:Don't think you can include Japan and Germany if we're removing crimes against humanity. Terror bombings are most definitely warcrimes. Yup, worth remembering that even US strategists were well aware if they lost the war they'd face warcrimes charges from the bombing/firebombing campaigns.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:04
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. The idea of an outsider building failed states into functioning ones is fairly new isn't it? You used to just annex or colonize places, not try to turn them into functional, independent countries. So there's no successes to point to because it's not something thats been tried a lot.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:04
|
|
|
FizFashizzle posted:On september 10th, 2001 Rumsfeld gave a speech to various assembled generals and what not berating them for not being out of the "cold war mindset." he thought the whole notion of large armies, occupations, bilateral strategizing etc was completely outdated. he believes the future of warfare were very small, tight, highly trained, highly technical attack units that could quickly neutralize enemy infrastructure without needing to do an invasion proper. In and of itself, that seems a natural progression from Bush Sr.'s "police action" bullshit with the original Iraq and just a much heavier version of what Clinton had been doing with Iraq for awhile. It's still very stupid and very awful, but it makes sense as an extension of America's renewed aggressive imperialism post-Soviet collapse. Bush's whole thing of direct regime change is just... absolutely the stupidest poo poo possible, but I guess Cheney needed his cut with all the rebuilding.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:05
|
|
|
Probably Magic posted:From what I understand, Rumsfeld was really for the "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am," school of invasion with no occupation afterwards while Condileeza was heavily in favor of surges, and then Bush opted for the middle with a soft occupational force that mostly let mercs run around which was the main reason why the Shi'ite Uprising was so bloody especially for contractors. Am I getting that right, or am I off on that, because as immoral as Rumsfeld's approach is, holy hell is it at least more defensible than Bush's compromise that was just the worst of both wrolds. Rumsfeld was that way for the 1991 Gulf War, for the 2003 Iraq invasion he was all about occupation and turning it into a magical American friend, it's just that he believed he could do it with an occupying force so small it made no sense relative to the size & population of the country. General Shinseki said as much to congress and it created a brief shitshow.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:08
|
|
|
OctaMurk posted:The idea of an outsider building failed states into functioning ones is fairly new isn't it? You used to just annex or colonize places, not try to turn them into functional, independent countries. So there's no successes to point to because it's not something thats been tried a lot. Not really. "Wipe out the ruling class and install one loyal to us but keep all the farmers in place" is a strategy as old as conquest.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:11
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. It might be a stretch to call modern Cambodia effective or decent but given what was happening in the country before the Vietnamese invasion you could argue it at least seems to have been an improvement.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:12
|
|
|
ModernMajorGeneral posted:It might be a stretch to call modern Cambodia effective or decent but given what was happening in the country before the Vietnamese invasion you could argue it at least seems to have been an improvement. Ideally Sihanook would never have been ousted though, no? EDIT: I always saw the Vietnamese invasion as Vietnam cleaning up the US' mess. Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Aug 16, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:13
|
|
|
sean10mm posted:Rumsfeld was that way for the 1991 Gulf War, for the 2003 Iraq invasion he was all about occupation and turning it into a magical American friend, it's just that he believed he could do it with an occupying force so small it made no sense relative to the size & population of the country. General Shinseki said as much to congress and it created a brief shitshow. Ah, so the small occupation force was more Rumsfeld's than Bush's idea then, alright, good to know. I know whatever Rumsfeld was pushing pissed Bush off because he went all in on Condi in the second term.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:14
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I'm curious if there have ever been cases where foreign powers have successfully built an effective, relatively decent, self-sustaining state out of a fragile or failed state with little institutional capacity, without resorting to wiping out the local population or other crimes against humanity. independent of the question of if it should be done, this could have worked. the US's failure in afghanistan isn't a categorical argument of finality against the possibility of it working, it's an example of an utterly and catastrophically inept occupation orchestrated by weird lunatics who were horny to engage in these decade-long, trillion dollar wars in part because they felt they had divine mandate revealed to them by prayer. everything was crucially flubbed from the onset, everything was ruled by the perverse incentives of war profiteering for insider contracting groups like Halliburton, and the occupation was critically mismanaged beyond before the first elections took place i offer this not as an argument that afghanistan should have been "liberated" by the US, but just as a way of noting it didn't necessarily have to end this badly, but the way we did things guaranteed it
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:15
|
|
|
20 years..... 20 loving years. And billions of money spent to "train afghan security forces" that melt like snow under the sun in about what? 3/4 days?!? are we loving joking? 20 loving years. Think about all the people that died, that lost their limbs or that will be forever imprisoned in their body stuck on a wheelchair......... all of that, for what? FOR WHAT?!?!??! 
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:16
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I would exclude stuff like Japan and Germany because they had long histories of state capacity, but maybe it's wrong to exclude them from the discussion. Honestly I think those two nations, plus Korea, kind of speak to why it's just not a useful question to ask. Conceivably sure the US has the resources and manpower to build up a functioning state in a foreign country, but without a Soviet Union style enemy it has no incentive to do so. Without the need for a buffer state all that's left is to extract resources from some foreign place until that becomes untenable. There's certainly not much political pressure at home to sacrifice blood and treasure to build up a foreign nation that might go on to do things that don't benefit us.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:16
|
|
|
Knightsoul posted:20 years..... 20 loving years. Yeah it still fucks with me mentally as a veteran. I mean, I kinda knew shortly after being to Afghanistan that it was likely all going to be for naught, but man did they pull the South Vietnam downfall in record time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:18
|
|
|
Eric Cantonese posted:Ideally Sihanook would never have been ousted though, no? Yeah in my example the somewhat successful nation building foreign power is Vietnam, absolutely not the USA.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:20
|
|
|
Cranappleberry posted:Depending on who you believe about information that has yet to be declassified, the Battle of Tora Bora blew that casus belli right out of the water.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 13:30 |
|
|
Some idiot British dude decided to fly to Afghanistan shortly before the fall....and now he's stuck there. https://twitter.com/Rimmy_Downunder/status/1426838284915798016?s=20
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2021 01:22
|
|