Afghanistan deadline

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Otto Harkaman

Its noted corruption has played a large part in the Afghan government's inability to retain control of the country. I think we have to face up to our own corruption. We fail every time in nation building, we often try to impose a corrupt government on other people. Its because we have corrupt people in our leadership who look after their own self interest and what benefits they can reap out of these situations. Its not always money that is skimmed but perhaps an advancement in career (political, civil and military), not rocking the boat, going with the flow, suppressing actual facts of what is the real situation. Pursuing a fanciful outcome that doesn't have the remotest chance of being achieved.

Well said, my friend.

Building the Afghan security apparatus was one of the key parts of the Obama administration’s strategy as it sought to find a way to hand over security and leave nearly a decade ago. These efforts produced an army modeled in the image of the United States’ military, an Afghan institution that was supposed to outlast the American war.

But it will likely be gone before the United States is.

While the future of Afghanistan seems more and more uncertain, one thing is becoming exceedingly clear: The United States’ 20-year endeavor to rebuild Afghanistan’s military into a robust and independent fighting force has failed, and that failure is now playing out in real time as the country slips into Taliban control.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/w...-collapse.html

Thanks to billions of dollars of weapons left in Afghan, now the Taliban will be stronger than when they were driven out in 2002.

[mapuc]

Here is what one of my FB-friend wrote on his wall. He is also a Danish politician born in Syria

"Afghans "choose" medieval Islam - let them chose their own fate!

We entered Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. We also wanted to help the Afghans build a rule of law, freedom and rights. Now they "choose" medieval Islam.

As a Democrat, I want democracy all over the world - yes, I am a democracy / rule of law cultural imperialist. Why should anyone born in unfreedom? But the experiences of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Arab Spring - they will not be helped - despite our will, efforts and losses. And as the saying goes, the people have the leaders they deserve.

No, the Taliban were not actively elected, but neither were they fought wholeheartedly and effectively - by the Afghans themselves.
In the future, our task will be to defend our borders, protect our welfare society and fight for our own freedom
"

Markus

[Mr Quatro]

Now it's reported that the Taliban is executing prisoners that give up.

Taliban fighters execute 22 Afghan commandos as they try to surrender

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/13/asia/...hnk/index.html

Plus the Taliban go village to village looking for unmarried women and forcing them to marry the Taliban troops and if they are not Muslims they become sex slaves.

I heard Biden wants to pay the Taliban to leave the US Embassy alone

[mapuc]

What kind of Afghanistan arise after the civil war ?

I know it will be a Islamic state with Islamic laws but beside that I don't know.

Markus

[Skybird]

There are Western politicians and media wonderign whether the Taleban want to show they are trustworthy diplomatioc partners by playing by the rules, or backwardly barbars.


They wonder and ask this quesiton seriously.


I also wonder. For example what planet these politicians and media have lived on in the past 30, 40 years. I mean they ask these questions seriously, not in a mood of sarcasm or black humour.

[August]

Originally Posted by mapuc

What kind of Afghanistan arise after the civil war ?

I know it will be a Islamic state with Islamic laws but beside that I don't know.

Markus

The same kind they had in the year 2000 apparently.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

There are Western politicians and media wonderign whether the Taleban want to show they are trustworthy diplomatioc partners by playing by the rules, or backwardly barbars.


They wonder and ask this quesiton seriously.


I also wonder. For example what planet these politicians and media have lived on in the past 30, 40 years. I mean they ask these questions seriously, not in a mood of sarcasm or black humour.

A leopard never changes its spots.

[Skybird]

And then I saw this on TV today, an interview with a former Afghan commando fighter. He said this, and I try to quote by the German dub as precisely as I can remember:


"The Taleban advanced to our position and began shooting at us. So of course we surrendered and left our equipment and weapons to them."


I marked the words I have big issue with. In the TV snippet, the young man talked with great naturalness as if what he described was the most reasonable and natural and obvious thing to do. I was most perplexed and found his completely non-competitive attitude - well, surreal.



Zero fighting spirit, not the smallest hint of a mindset that he would even have considered to resist, to set up a fight. No sense of duty, commitment, nothing.



Many reports we get from Afghanistan that it is like this everywhere: the Taleban do not even need to fight much and break resistence. They show up and mostly the Afghan army units seem to immediately surrender. That there are storng ethnical and regional identity feelings and sentiments of people for certain regions and tribal origins, of course does not help if such people then get sent to regions they have zero roots in. By numbers, the army is around 300 thousand, the Taleban are said to be in the range of 70000 to 200000. Thwe Fghan army on aper is SUPERIOR, and has air dominance. Also, the afghan army got one and a half decade of Western training, and is superior in weaponry and platforms. And still the Taleban cut through the country like a hot knife cuts through soft butter.



This illustrates better than anything else what worth it has had to invest all those years and all that money into training and equipment. I mean we have had feedback from insiders and military advisors that moral and sense of committment is non-existent, that many recruits are social loosers and outcasts who already got chased away from their villages, and that one could not get this Afghan army to form a real disciplined and hardened fighting spirit. Western trainers have unofficially complained about it time and again. US ones. British ones. German ones.



To see this kind young man, a commando special soldier by his uniform emblems!, so innocently explaining why he thought it was the most natural thing to not set up a fight and just hand over his weapons and surrender, was - well, it was unreal. I was baffled.

[Skybird]

And this German general probably is spot on (quoted after Der Tagesspiegel):


Former Bundeswehr General Hans-Lothar Domröse believes NATO's mission in Afghanistan has failed. The “train, assist, advise” concept did not work, he said on Saturday on NDR Info. Although the Afghan army is well trained and equipped, it does not use its resources. The soldiers apparently don't know what they are fighting for, said Domröse. The question arises as to whether an Afghan state even exists or whether individual tribal princes ruled the country. In 2008, Domröse was Chief of Staff of the ISAF Security and Reconstruction Mission in Afghanistan under the command of US General David D. McKiernan.


Red markings by me, of course.

[mapuc]

Skybird wrote

"Many reports we get from Afghanistan that it is like this everywhere: the Taleban do not even need to fight much and break resistence."

As my Danish friends wrote on his wall

"Afghans "choose" medieval Islam - let them chose their own fate!

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Skybird wrote

"Many reports we get from Afghanistan that it is like this everywhere: the Taleban do not even need to fight much and break resistence."

As my Danish friends wrote on his wall

"Afghans "choose" medieval Islam - let them chose their own fate!

Markus

Except the women and girls. They are not being asked and have no choice. They currently get slaughtered for the past 20 years.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Except the women and girls. They are not being asked and have no choice. They currently get slaughtered for the past 20 years.

True I was merely thinking about the men in the Afghan army who seems to lack fighting will and that's why I translated what my friends wrote.

Markus

[mapuc]

It's interesting to follow our politicians and read what they have to say when it comes to Afghanistan.

One of them blame USA, UK, Denmark a.s.o. for Taliban is winning the civil war and it's USA, UK, Denmark a.s.o. fault Taliban became so strong.

Markus

[Skybird]

End game in Kabul. Its over.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

End game in Kabul. Its over.

It sure is.

Peaceful transfer of power to transitional government being prepared, acting interior minister says.

The Taliban orders its fighters to refrain from violence and allow safe passage for anyone wanting to leave.

Eyewitnesses say the militants met little resistance along the way to the capital.

US begins evacuating staff from its embassy in Kabul.

About 600 British troops are being deployed to help the departure of UK nationals and others.

The last major city in the north, Jalalabad, falls without a struggle.

US President Joe Biden defends decision to leave Afghanistan, saying he could not justify an "endless American presence"