Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[garbon]

I wasn't addressing that (though I think he made the right decision). Just posting something I found sad about Afghanistan.

[OttoVonBismarck]

[Josquius]

I wonder how long the Taliban were planning this. They must have had agreements in place a while ago. Its just amazing that the whole country flipped almost as soon as the Americans left.

Seems there was a massive intelligence failure here. Or they just chose to ignore it

[The Brain]

I guess I won't be able to visit Babur's tomb in my lifetime.

[garbon]

I wonder how long the Taliban were planning this. They must have had agreements in place a while ago. Its just amazing that the whole country flipped almost as soon as the Americans left.

Seems there was a massive intelligence failure here. Or they just chose to ignore it

What would we have held on for?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I wonder how long the Taliban were planning this. They must have had agreements in place a while ago. Its just amazing that the whole country flipped almost as soon as the Americans left.

Seems there was a massive intelligence failure here. Or they just chose to ignore it

It seems likely there must have been discussions at least with a number of these provincial leaders long before this month, maybe things to the effect of "when the Americans leave, if you surrender we'll promise X, Y and Z." It seems like there must have been virtually no faith in the Ghani government to function at all without American support for so many people to go from shooting Taliban to making deals with them.

[grumbler]

Dick?

Michael.  And it's spelled "Wittmann."

[OttoVonBismarck]

This article has some details:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

It basically sounds like a series of "local cease fires" negotiated over a year ago, were actually deals being struck between the Taliban and village-level leaders to simply surrender. These deals then rolled up to regional and provincial levels. Corrupt bargains were struck. It seems like most of the time the Afghan government described these deals as cease fires, which did not accurately represent the truth of the matter. Then the Taliban just had to wait for the U.S. to leave to execute on them.

Considering the Washington Post has such detail on this stuff pretty much as it is happening, I can only conclude this has been broadly known by U.S. intelligence all along?

[grumbler]

It seems likely there must have been discussions at least with a number of these provincial leaders long before this month, maybe things to the effect of "when the Americans leave, if you surrender we'll promise X, Y and Z." It seems like there must have been virtually no faith in the Ghani government to function at all without American support for so many people to go from shooting Taliban to making deals with them.

I think that this is exactly it.  The Taliban said "if you fight, we will execute you if we win" and no one was willing to bet their lives that the Taliban would not win.

It's much better for Punjab Afghanistan for it to go down this way, as it saves a lot of needless destruction and killing.  Not so great for the rest of Afghanistan because the Taliban hardly had to break a sweat.  For them the Afghan National Government was not a problem; barely an inconvenience.

[The Brain]

This aged like milk:

[chipwich]

Being enslaved by ISIS made the Syrians and Iraqis get their heads out of their asses; dunno if the Afghanistan has any sort of counterforce or maybe they Love The Lash

[Sheilbh]

Being enslaved by ISIS made the Syrians and Iraqis get their heads out of their asses; dunno if the Afghanistan has any sort of counterforce or maybe they Love The Lash

Syria and Iraq are very different places to Afghanistan.

I also think material factors play a role in this. I think it's one of those triangles I don't think you can try and build a western-aligned political system in a country that's major cash crop is opium, while still trying to crack down on that from a "war on drugs" perspective (that was a motivation in the UK going to Helmand - 90% of heroin in the UK comes from Afghanistan). I think you can have any two of those things. The Taliban are absolutely okay with opium.

I also wonder if it was a mistake not bringing back the king as a unifying Pashtun figurehead. The Loya Jirga in 2002 apparently preferred Shah to Karzai.

Separately it is striking that even Najibullah's regime lasted a couple of years - which is what I saw people predicting after the US left.

[OttoVonBismarck]

"One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country," Biden said. "And an endless American presence in the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable to me."

I honestly can't say he is wrong on this.

This is also interesting:

"What I am feeling and thinking about the situation in Afghanistan, I can never fit on Twitter," Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), himself an Iraq War veteran, tweeted. "But one thing that is definitely sticking out is that I haven't gotten one constituent call about it and my district has a large Veteran population."

Americans don't vote based on Afghanistan.

[Valmy]

https://theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/an-afghan-woman-in-kabul-now-i-have-to-burn-everything-i-achieved

An Afghan woman in Kabul: 'Now I have to burn everything I achieved'

A university student tells of seeing all around her the 'fearful faces of women and ugly faces of men who hate women

I am very sorry for this woman just as I am for all those women who were crushed by the Islamic revolution in Iran.

But polling data is clear that the overwhelming majority of women in Afghanistan are more aligned with the Taliban than her. That is a fact no American occupation can change. Afghanistan can only be changed by the people of Afghanistan. If she wants to leave the country I hope somebody will help her. If she stays I wish her all the best.

[Syt]

Austria, meanwhile, sees no reason to suspend deportations of Afghan refugees whose requests for asylum have been rejected. Says interior minister Nehammer, "We will keep deporting for as long as we can."