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I am hearing that Bagram was abandoned after the Taliban demanded it.. Gen Miller objected to it but was overruled by the state department. What in the actual fck?
The foreign office disagrees with the military. heh, this happens more often than i care to count and in as many countries
Whoever thought leaving Bagram was a good idea must have been drunk
In their minds, Pakistanis have defeated another Superpower using jihad, expect Kashmir to burn. Already I am reading opinion pieces written by Pakistanis that India needs to learn a lesson from America. If America could be defeated, India doesn't stand a chance according to them....
Those are the dumb ones.. Pakistan is next, not Kashmir. The same Pakistanis dancing around in joy at Afghanistan's fall will be crying foul in about 6-8 months once the TTP comes eastwards to "break the chains of slavery", to quote a clown called Imran Khan.
If the Pakistanis thought they were using the Taliban, the Taliban too was using Pakistan. Taliban-TTP-AQ are bonded by blood, intermarriage and a common view of the world.
Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
-Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry
In their minds, Pakistanis have defeated another Superpower using jihad, expect Kashmir to burn. Already I am reading opinion pieces written by Pakistanis that India needs to learn a lesson from America. If America could be defeated, India doesn't stand a chance according to them....
In Pakistan the military tells the media what to say not what they need to know.
If they can defeat NATO then Pakistan & China are not to be feared. Yes ?
The TB has yet to demonstrate they can run their own country
And as predicted, Biden gets punked. We are going to abandon our citizens, the citizens of our NATO allies, international NGO workers and our Afghan allies. This has turned into route because he has lost his mental faculties and his balls.
In their minds, Pakistanis have defeated another Superpower using jihad, expect Kashmir to burn. Already I am reading opinion pieces written by Pakistanis that India needs to learn a lesson from America. If America could be defeated, India doesn't stand a chance according to them....
The Aug 2019 warning was very clear. Pak's could either withdraw or watch as India begins the process of returning the Kashmir valley back to Hindu rule and demography.
And as predicted, Biden gets punked. We are going to abandon our citizens, the citizens of our NATO allies, international NGO workers and our Afghan allies. This has turned into route because he has lost his mental faculties and his balls.
What a weak, pathetic, cold and calculative person. He is totally despicable and I hope he gets treated like the trash he is. No point harping on about being the leader of the free world when you cower in front of Talibani demands.
Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
-Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry
Those are the dumb ones.. Pakistan is next, not Kashmir. The same Pakistanis dancing around in joy at Afghanistan's fall will be crying foul in about 6-8 months once the TTP comes eastwards to "break the chains of slavery", to quote a clown called Imran Khan.
If the Pakistanis thought they were using the Taliban, the Taliban too was using Pakistan. Taliban-TTP-AQ are bonded by blood, intermarriage and a common view of the world.
Nobody likes a double gamer. I am sure the Taliban have not forgotten that Pakistan sided with the US in 2001 to topple their regime and then allowed US bases and supplies transported through their soil and sometimes even shared intelligence on Taliban targets.
Pakistan has bet that religion will trump politics or ethnic considerations. But as the case of Bangladesh shows that is not the case. The fact that Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan will always want a united realm makes Afghanistan a natural ally of India in the long run.
Nobody likes a double gamer. I am sure the Taliban have not forgotten that Pakistan sided with the US in 2001 to topple their regime and then allowed US bases and supplies transported through their soil and sometimes even shared intelligence on Taliban targets.
Pakistan has bet that religion will trump politics or ethnic considerations. But as the case of Bangladesh shows that is not the case. The fact that Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan will always want a united realm makes Afghanistan a natural ally of India in the long run.
Sirajuddin Haqqani supports the TTP. Yet the Paks support the Haqqani network.
Why does the Haqqani network need the Paks now when they can get sanctuary in Afg
Baradar spent eight years in a Pak prison and was released at the behest of the Americans in 2018. He is unlikely to have any warm feelings towards the Paks.
Controlling the Taliban earlier was done by keeping their families in Pakistan under house arrest. Where is that leverage now.
I am just stunned by the way Biden has handled the whole pullout. His decision to pullout was correct but the manner of execution is pathetic. Since when do we pull out the military while leaving the civilians/non-combatants behind. Even the Germans in defeat fought delaying battles to buy as much time as possible for civilians to escape from the Russians. I was just shocked by the amount of military stuff that was left behind to the Taliban, I am still getting used to seeing an M16 in the hands of these people as I am more used to seeing Kalashnikovs. And we have the President bragging that America is back...
You realize those weapons were turned over by the ANA and not the US military.
Once we turned those items over to them, we lost control over them. Same for HMMWVs, UH-60s, MRAPs, etc. And its all over 40 year technology. And those airframes have many many hours on them.
As for destroying them...why? What purpose? Why waste more treasure and possibly blood over items which pose no threat to us?
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
In Pakistan the military tells the media what to say not what they need to know.
If they can defeat NATO then Pakistan & China are not to be feared. Yes ?
The TB has yet to demonstrate they can run their own country
Some more points to add here
The Paks were expecting a bloody civil war as everybody figured the ANA would fight. This is where the Paks would come in and help the TB to win. Back to the 90s like Najibullah.
Didn't happen. The TB captured Afghanistan on their own.
So now the TB are independent of Pakistan. They are no longer a proxy of the ISI. Pakistan did not capture Afghanistan.
The Afghan govt screwed us and the TB screwed Pakistan.
I'm wondering how long the Taliban will be able to maintain a unified government (or what passes for government in Afghanistan at least) in the face of their inability to maintain even the basic services provided by the former government. The major urban centers at least have enjoyed access to goods and services they won't have now. And I doubt the T will be able to maintain the phone system for long let alone airports, hospitals and other 'luxuries' like fuel and spare parts. How many skilled professionals would have left the country with their families as soon as things started going backwards.
Then there are the Hazaras and other groups/tribes who might feel they have been sidelined. Or at least worse off than they were before. Any bets on the T facing their own insurgency problem if not local rebellions in short order.
I can also see poppy production skyrocketing of course as they will need a cash crop.
So the US still has some chips on the table I guess. It has lots of ways of making life for a Taliban government hell without actually putting boots on the ground (well maybe some covert boots).
The west was putting up the bulk of funds to sustain the Afghan state to date, the trick will be to con them into continuing to do so
The revenue generated by the Afghan state was only enough to cater for around 20% of its budget, mostly from customs collections. The rest of the money came from Western countries – around $4-5 billion. Another around $3-4 billion came for the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) which no longer exists, unless someone now considers the Haqqani Network, elements of Al Qaeda, Jaish, TTP, ETIM, etc. as the new ANDSF. Even if the money for the ANDSF is taken out of the equation, where will the rest of the $4-5 billion come from? Even the $2 billion of customs revenue is likely to fall quite precipitously because of the banking collapse and disruption in operations of international payments mechanisms.
The Taliban revenue stream from narcotics, extortion, smuggling and other illegal activities was an estimated $1-1.5 billion. But these activities are fine to fund terrorism and insurgency, not to run a country. Unless the Taliban model is to become a Jihadist-Narco state – let’s not rule it out completely – it will have to at least pretend to be a normal state. Because if it continues to follow the Jihadist-Narco model then there will be serious repercussions in the entire neighbourhood which will seal the borders with Afghanistan, making the economic crisis worse. More importantly, it will bring the grand plans that were behind the colonisation of Afghanistan come crashing down.
For now, the expectation of the new colonial masters of Afghanistan (read Pakistan) is that given the astounding level of wokeness and obtuseness in the American establishment, it won’t take much to convince them to keep funding the Emirate. They will be sold the old blackmail: if you don’t incentivise the Taliban by giving them money, they will not change. Any number of Western, particularly American and British analysts, are already making this argument using the usual trope of ‘humanitarian crisis’ to plug their line.
Add to this the other line that will be sold: if the West gives money, it will be able to develop leverages and influence; but if it blocks all aid, it will have no presence, no influence, nothing.
Both these lines of argument have flopped spectacularly in the past. Worse, they betray an astounding ignorance of what the Taliban stand for, their ideological commitment, their antediluvian worldview that cannot countenance anyone who doesn’t subscribe to what they believe in. And yet, there are any number of Ivy League-educated ‘useful idiots’ who will lap up this argument. Because the West, especially the US has a death wish, they might reopen the aid tap to the Taliban. But what this will do is that it will prop up the Emirate only so that the Pakistanis and Chinese can reap on the cheap whatever benefit they hope to reap in Afghanistan. This is exactly the model adopted in Pakistan: the US and the West have funded the Pakistani state which is beholden to China and has shafted the Americans.
Estimates of Americans left in country, minus current daily Americans flown out leaves almost 6000 Americans behind on Aug 31st. Could end up being our biggest prisoner situation since the fall of Corregidor. Probably wont end up much better for most of them anyway. If Biden won't stand up to the Taliban to get them out, he won't stand up for them when he no longer has any assets in country.
You realize those weapons were turned over by the ANA and not the US military.
Once we turned those items over to them, we lost control over them. Same for HMMWVs, UH-60s, MRAPs, etc. And its all over 40 year technology. And those airframes have many many hours on them.
As for destroying them...why? What purpose? Why waste more treasure and possibly blood over items which pose no threat to us?
You would have thought people could have figured that one out but apparently not. I wonder if they figured out that the ANA was a paper tiger?
Estimates of Americans left in country, minus current daily Americans flown out leaves almost 6000 Americans behind on Aug 31st. Could end up being our biggest prisoner situation since the fall of Corregidor. Probably wont end up much better for most of them anyway. If Biden won't stand up to the Taliban to get them out, he won't stand up for them when he no longer has any assets in country.
If State and DOD have no idea you are in country (and probably a bunch of dual citizens) then tough cookies but you are boarding the next flight over to help find them aren't you? With your comments one would think it is the least you can do to leave no one behind.
I've long since graduated from youthful service into middle class tax paying. I am not opposed to ending the war, been in favor of pulling out for years. But the civies and our allies should not have been left behind with no exit plan.
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