Collapse in Afghanistan

[Albany Rifles]

Most all US born white Americans do not understand any other culture other than their own except maybe those who do lots of foreign travel among the people of other countries. In my travels I have heard several times, particularly in Asia, that Americans (they mean Caucasians) don't understand us. I know GG has been married to a Korean woman for some time like me to a Filipina and I'd bet he can still get tripped up once in awhile like me regarding our wives thinking. I know I sure as hell do and it has been 21 years but I am way better than anyone who hasn't been exposed to living with someone from the Philippines. Hiya and Pakikisama can still trip me up since my mind first thinks in American terms rather than Filipino terms. The best thing I have learned is keep my mouth shut. Frankly white Americans will never understand other cultures for the most part. Not taught, not interested, why should I care, and so forth...

TBM,

To be fair, very few Americans travel overseas. Now sometimes folks think this is because Americans are insular....we had discussions here on the WAB regarding that subject. A big chunk of this is the US is so damn big that there is so much to see here! I am 63 and there are only a handful of states I haven't visited...but that puts me in the minority. Another part of this is the lack of free time for most Americans. Paid vacation is hardly universal and many folks never take as much as they are allocated, whether out of dedication, fear or whatever. Also, most Americans are only English speakers. When I was stationed in Germany I was passable in both German & French...but by the end of the 1980s those skills were gone because I stopped using them on daily basis.

So it's often hard for an American to appreciate another culture. But conversely, many people's understanding is only as deep as the American movies and/or TV shows they may see.

[Albany Rifles]

A further thought on what happened in Afghanistan....

The Afghan people were just fed up with 40+ years of continuous warfare. Keep in mind 80-90% of the casualties the Taliban caused were on the Afghan population. The IEDs/VBIEDs, the suicide vest wearers...Afghan civilians far and away took the brunt of those attacks. The Afghan people pretty much decided better the Taliban and an end to war than the Americans staying and continued war. This attitude no doubt crept into the Afghan security forces.

Can't say as I blame them.

[TopHatter]

As a former Peacekeeper, that is a whole bunch of bull. Their local situation did not solve itself and they were reduced to fighting; requiring outside intervention. If they could have done it themselves, they should have done it themselves. It most certainly does not mean turning us into locals just to oversee locals. Our morals are good enough. If we find things unacceptable, it is because they are unacceptable. We DO NOT NEED to understand local customs to accept the unacceptable.

No, we will not succeed trying to turn Afghans into Americans/Canadians/Brits/Martians but whole heartily, we should not be turning into Afghans just to please Afghans. Afghans allowed AQ in. It took Americans/Canadians/Europeans to tell the Afghans why that was a very bad idea.

Can't say I agree with everything the man said, and you're quite right, we don't need to understand the local customs to accept the unacceptable. On the other hand, I've noticed that non-American peacekeepers are usually pretty aghast at the lack of knowledge and sensitivity toward local customs displayed by American peacekeepers. The U.S. has to do better in this regard. Certainly with local U.S. commanders learn about the local customs and respect them, they get commensurately excellent results. But that can't just be limited to isolated units.

[Firestorm]

Was the problem about understanding local customs or doing a poor job building up the ANA? The ANA seemed to have been trained and equipped to fight like a first world army with lots of air-support and top-notch ELINT/SIGINT and communications infra backing them up. How was this going to be sustainable in one of the poorest countries in the world once the US was out of the picture? Turns out all it needed was for the contractors maintaining the equipment to be flown out and the whole thing came down like a house of cards.

[Double Edge]

They were not trained as an army per se but more as a paramilitary to handle counter terrorism.

[Officer of Engineers]

On the other hand, I've noticed that non-American peacekeepers are usually pretty aghast at the lack of knowledge and sensitivity toward local customs displayed by American peacekeepers. The U.S. has to do better in this regard. Certainly with local U.S. commanders learn about the local customs and respect them, they get commensurately excellent results. But that can't just be limited to isolated units.

That's because the US does not have a Colonial History when and where a Major had the authority to speak with and to honour the Queen's Voice.

You also do not have a history of raising local regiments to serve the Empire. Where in the UK sprung forth the Sikh and Gurkha Regiments. British Officers serving in the Gurkha Regiments are required to learn their language, if nothing else to ensure proper communications. Even in Canada, you want to goto full Colonel, you have to be fluent in both English and French. So, a hell of a lot of these are ingrained mainly because of the nature of our militaries. France and the UK still have overseas holdings.

Frankly, even here, all of NATO are mere amateurs in Afghanistan. The one country we could used to lead us, India, wanted nothing to do with Afghanistan. They wrote the book on modern insurgency. That should have told us a lot right of the bat.

[TopHatter]

That's because the US does not have a Colonial History when and where a Major had the authority to speak with and to honour the Queen's Voice..

True enough. Our colonial history consisted mainly eradicating the local native American tribes, making Latin America safe for the United Fruit Company and issuing an RFQ for a handgun that could stop a charging Moro tribesman in his tracks.

[AlbanyRifles]

An interesting story about some resistance to the Taliban…just like his father.

The Afghan Province Of Panjshir Remains Outside The Taliban's Control - https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/10328...-ahmad-massoud

[Double Edge]

The other fixed match people talk about. The one between the Americans & the Taliban

https://youtu.be/99mv6K7huU8

Q. Does the US have no more interest in this region ?

A. They have definitely left Afghanistan. They have withdrawn. They built up an entire logistics infrastructure in central Asia, A northern network by which they were able to supply their troops in Afghanistan. After things cooled off with Pakistan, that entire infrastructure has also been mostly dismantled. So it looks like the American influence in central Asia and Afghanistan is almost over.

The Pakistanis are now in the Chinese camp and America doesn't even have good relations with Pakistan anymore.

So what is the American objective ? have they simply given up on the region ?

Not quite. We know very well that the Pakistanis were supporting the Taliban all this time. They were supporting the Taliban even when the American soldiers were being killed by the Taliban and the Americans know this very well.

We know that the US has handed over the country on a platter to the Taliban. The Afghan army for some reason has not given any resistance to the Taliban. And all of this equipment has fallen into Taliban hands.

So it looks like there has been some sort of agreement between the Americans and the Taliban to hand over the country to the Taliban. And the deal is the Taliban will capture the country so fast that it will become free from Pakistan influence to a great extent. Then if the Americans recognize the Taliban and give them legitimacy the Taliban will strengthen their command over Afghanistan. Then maybe they want the Chinese to get embroiled in this and suffer a setback.

I think the main objective of the Americans is to punish the Pakistanis for the way they betrayed the Americans over the past 20 years. The Pakistani army and the ISI is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of American soldiers at the hands of the Taliban.

I think the Americans want to give it back to the Pakistanis by making the Taliban bleed Pakistan now because of the territorial dispute they have. So this could be the overall American objective, they want to destabilize Pakistan now as a payback.

The Americans now are in this big competition with the Chinese so they now need india on their side to offset and counter balance the Chinese. So maybe India also has some role in this.

We know that the Americans have not been targeted by the Taliban. There are still many American nationals there. There are American reporters there. The Taliban are keeping their hands off. They have not touched any American. They have allowed American military operations, air force operations to continue in evacuating people from Kabul airport. They have not interfered in that.

The Taliban have also not interfered in any Indian activities. They have allowed Indian citizens to come back to India. They have allowed the Indian air force to land in Kabul to evacuate Indian citizens.

The Taliban seems to have some sort of understanding with the Americans and with the Indians.

Something is going on, something is cooking and i think the country that will suffer the most from all of this could very well be Pakistan.

It could be the start of something bad for Pakistan. That is the feeling that i get from all this.

Americans sprang Mullah Baradar from a Pak jail in 2018 where he had been languishing since 2010 for attempting to make an independent deal with the US, India & Karzai.

Remember S2 posting about it at the time.

Who is Mullah Baradar ? he is the TB's President AFAICT.

You think he will be partial to the US or Pakistan

[Firestorm]

The one country we could used to lead us, India, wanted nothing to do with Afghanistan. They wrote the book on modern insurgency. That should have told us a lot right of the bat.

And you discarded the one piece of advice India (and your Afghan partners themselves) gave you. That the Pakistanis were double-crossing you and you could never win unless you put a stop to that. Even now most in the US seem to have blinders on. They will blame the defeat on everything from Ghani's corruption to cowardice by the ANA but refuse to acknowledge that the main reason was you were being continually stabbed in the back by your ally who was providing safe harbor and support to the Taliban.

[Double Edge]

Frankly, even here, all of NATO are mere amateurs in Afghanistan. The one country we could used to lead us, India, wanted nothing to do with Afghanistan. They wrote the book on modern insurgency. That should have told us a lot right of the bat.

We noticed odd things when training Afghan officers. We were ignored.

Keep in mind India was shut out from the start to keep the Paks happy.

An Indian officers critique here.

Paks did not want a capable army on their border !!

There is one thing i should add here. India's handling of insurgency involved army fighting the insurgents during the day and the intel guys drinking whisky with them at night. How's that for working at cross purposes by two govt orgs (!)

We never kill the insurgent leaders. We co-opt them and make them legal.

The British tactic of hit them hard over the head then teach them to play the piano.

Sounds like what the Americans have done

[Double Edge]

AIM's take on Afghanistan. He thinks its a matter of time before India recognises the TB

So Indian policy on Afg is going to go lock step with the American one.

He's visited Afg in Mar 2019 and interacted with the TB among others. The facts on the ground that he found indicated the TB had become globalised.

Taliban – A Mentality Not an Ethnicity: A Ground Report from Afghanistan | Chanakya Dialogues | Feb 17 2021

A stop at the historic Nau-Gumbad mosque, built on a Buddhist shrine, which in turn was built on a Zoroastrian one brought the first unplanned interaction with the Taliban. I was convinced at this point that things were going to go south – especially when for the only time during this trip I had guns pointed at me. However, the mention of the magic word “Hindustan” calmed things down quite significantly, and I was invited into the hut of the caretaker, a sad figure who had lost his entire family during the war.

On the grounds of the mosque, he grew his crop of hash, which I was required to smoke when chatting with the Taliban. I soon realised why, the stuff was potent and loosens the tongue significantly, almost as if it were a truth serum. The conversation mostly hinged around how much respect these men had for India, and how projects by India had helped their family members directly. Surprisingly to a man they detested Pakistan. On being asked why they were fighting the government, not one single answer had anything to do with a “national cause” or hatred of foreigners. Of the nine men present, three had a personal vendetta against a local government official, one was there because of a family loss (his brother had been killed in fighting), and the rest were there for “family reasons” mostly as having been promised for good and services rendered to the family and it was subtly suggested partially through threats as well.

[Officer of Engineers]

And you discarded the one piece of advice India (and your Afghan partners themselves) gave you. That the Pakistanis were double-crossing you and you could never win unless you put a stop to that. Even now most in the US seem to have blinders on. They will blame the defeat on everything from Ghani's corruption to cowardice by the ANA but refuse to acknowledge that the main reason was you were being continually stabbed in the back by your ally who was providing safe harbor and support to the Taliban.

We noticed odd things when training Afghan officers. We were ignored.

Keep in mind India was shut out from the start to keep the Paks happy.

Pakistan is a strawman argument. At no time did Pakistani actions or inactions affected our combat tempo (Canada, UK, and US were the only ones conducting offensive combat actions). We were conducting combat operations deep into Khandahar and Helmand and this was at aTaliban best road logistics but mostly foot. This means there were safe depots throughout Afghanistan. While Pakistan teritories certainly helped, by no means were the Taliban was going to be hampered by it. Keep in mind that these were mostly company level actions, at best reduced battalion. Two thousand Canadians held Khandahar. That is laughable by WWII standards.

Pakistan is another example of placing blame on everything else except accepting responsibility. We gave the Afghans a Afghanistan they didn't want, one this at best, mired in Civil War while being robbed/denied monies by Kabul.

[Double Edge]

The attack was carried out by an individual, not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity but an individual person gripped by an ideology that is not supported here by anyone. --Jacinda Ardern

Didn't take long for six kiwis to get stabbed in a supermarket

The threat with the TB's win is it gives radicals a boost every where (!) What then if we legtimise them ?!?

India can handle militants trying to get into J&K.

Much harder to deal with home grown terror.

[Double Edge]

Pakistan is a strawman argument.

Unless you isolate the battlefield there is no chance to win. We saw this with NE insurgencies. When the borders of Bangladesh & Burma were porous the insurgency went on for decades. When the govts of Burma & Bangladesh cooperated the insurgency in the NE weakened.

At no time did Pakistani actions or inactions affected our combat tempo (Canada, UK, and US were the only ones conducting offensive combat actions). We were conducting combat operations deep into Khandahar and Helmand and this was at aTaliban best road logistics but mostly foot. This means there were safe depots throughout Afghanistan. While Pakistan teritories certainly helped, by no means were the Taliban was going to be hampered by it. Keep in mind that these were mostly company level actions, at best reduced battalion. Two thousand Canadians held Khandahar. That is laughable by WWII standards.

When did you hold the Afghan country ? Provincial capitals yes. All of them.

AIM said as soon as he left the cities he encountered TB check points during his travels. Some areas were no go for an Indian.

So when you exit the capital you are in TB country. This never changed throughout the war. We told ourselves it did not matter.

Pakistan is another example of placing blame on everything else except accepting responsibility. We gave the Afghans a Afghanistan they didn't want, one this at best, mired in Civil War while being robbed/denied monies by Kabul.

Every one believed the ANA would be able to hold. Some thing else happened instead.

The TB did not win. The ANA did not lose. They just refused to fight.