Afghanistan Has Fallen

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

15 minutes ago, mcambl61 said:

Biden is a career corrupt dementia ridden stooge and a puppet of the former Obama administration idiots who are making every single decision. 

The ridiculous community organizer Marxist mantra is in full control to destroy the country. 

It is even worse. They are like a bunch of citizen of Idiocracy reading "Communism for Dummies" and trying then to "do communism" and with a lot of electrolytes. That CHAZ or CHOP autonomous zone experiment in Seattle last year told us everything about how disorganized and unskilled morons they are. Utterly incompetent arrogant buffoons.

Edited August 16, 2021 by JackIsAGoodBoy

[longwood50]

15 hours ago, JamesE said:

And had the US engaged with the Taliban initially (which they wanted but the puppet government refused) it would have been a totally different outcome. The US never learns from history; either its own (Vietnam, Laos) or that of others (British and Russians in Afghanistan).

You are so correct.  The USA has not won a war since WWII.  What is different?  Well they fire bombed Germany into rubble, and threatened to turn Japan into the stone age with the nuclear bomb. 

The Romans learned centuries ago that you can not occupy a hostile country and they leveled Israel and expelled all of its inhabitants.  

Whether Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan there was no basis for any of these wars.  I suspect in all of them it was the military industrial complex that gets wealthy making the components of war that pulled the levers to get the USA involved.  

If there is any lesson that should be learned is that in war there is no "measured response"  If you make the horrible decision to send your citizens into battle you should be there to destroy the enemy not manage it.  That would mean many innocent lives would get lost and hence the reason why war should be a last resort and only when there is no other alternative.  Of the 9/11 hijackers 15 were Saudi, 2 U.A.E, 1 Egyptian, and 1, Lebanese.  And who did the USA retaliate against.  Afghanistan and Iraq.  

Twenty years of human suffering, trillions of dollars and thousands of deaths of both USA citizens and Afghans.  As an American I am ashamed.  

Collin Powell former head of the military's Joint Chiefs said it best.  

"The military does only two things well 1. It kills people  2. It blows things up."

One thing is for sure, you can occupy but never defeat or govern a region that is hostile to you.  You would think our own history of kicking the British out hundreds of years ago would serve as a reminder.  But it doesn't. 

 



 

[Fluke]

1 hour ago, Zool said:

oops...

The journalist questioning Biden seemed to know more about the situation that Biden did .

How did that happen ?

She had been told that Afghanistan would likely collapse and the Taliban take over and Biden said that she had wrong information . 

   She was right and Biden was wrong .

How did that happen ?

  Was Biden given wrong information or was it that he didn't understand what he was being told?

[9S_]

17 minutes ago, PBS said:

Pompeo was yet another utterly compromised trump sycophant

Not a single war started under Trump. Pompeo also rescued the most American hostages abroad without sending in pallets of unmarked currency in the dead of night. 
 

18 minutes ago, PBS said:

trump has no responsibility for US policy mistakes? Guess you've forgotten he was President for four years.

He was and Afghanistan had a presidential election. Girls could go to school. You had female judges, lawyers, journalists and politicians. The most popular show in Afghanistan was a Thailand Voice type shows. 
When Trump left office all provincial capitals were in Kabul’s hands, $1 Billion in US military equipment were secured. Kabul still had a president. 
 

Now that the resident is in the White House… I mean vacationing at Camp David, all those gains will be wiped out. You’ll see Libya all over again

20 minutes ago, PBS said:

Sure the government of Afghanistan was hugely corrupt and other ills, but never resolved by any US Administration

Afghanistan didn’t fall under Bush, Obama or Trump. It fell under Biden. He bragged about it. He owns it. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Stonker said:

It was simply a war that couldn't be won, and the servicemen sent there to do the impossible deserved better

No it was definitely a war that could have been won unfortunately over the last 20 years certain Politicians have let the Military down in Afghanistan restricting the Military with ROA (rules off engagement) which ties our hands dealing with the Taliban and if your wondering which Politicians and Party I'm talking about have ever noticed the everytime the Democrats are in power The Middle East is on fire ?

[mcambl61]

20 minutes ago, PBS said:

No irrational emotions or TDS on my part - irrational thoughts and delusion are the domain of trump world. Pompeo was yet another utterly compromised trump sycophant. AL Qaeda was not the prominent Islamist non Taliban threat in Afghanistan during trump's presidency, it was IS.

trump has no responsibility for US policy mistakes? Guess you've forgotten he was President for four years.

Sure the government of Afghanistan was hugely corrupt and other ills, but never resolved by any US Administration. Approx 100,000 Afghans were killed opposing the Taliban, to dismiss their suffering is ignoble. 

So, you are still full of trump derangement and hatred that is clearly the case. 

 

Establishment politicians on both sides and the incompetent pentagon heirachy are responsible for the mess. Not trump. 

 

Biden is responsible for the hastily unsecured withdrawal, not trump. 

 

Get over your silly irrational emotional hatred. 

Deal with reality. 

 

Biden is a career corrupt dementia ridden stooge controlled by former Obama administration sycophants. 

 

Deal with it. 

 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

Corrupted baby boomer end-of-life politicians (beat even Soviet Union, oldest geezer there in charge was only 75!) teaming up with the millennial Woke Jacobins. Obey us, admit your guiltiness or be cancelled!

Dis is gonna be gud! The potential for chaos and destruction is immense! This Afghanistan business is only an appetizer, more, much more to follow!

[Poolie]

43 minutes ago, longwood50 said:

threatened to turn Japan into the stone age with the nuclear bomb. 

No, no. That was Iran, I am reliably informed. You have to get your piles of rocks right. (Ask @JamesE)

Anyway, whether it be Biden's, Trump's or whoever's fault, they royally messed up again.  Against some sheep herders.   Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Edited August 16, 2021 by Poolie
Addition

[Stonker]

1 hour ago, 23RD said:

No it was definitely a war that could have been won unfortunately over the last 20 years certain Politicians have let the Military down in Afghanistan restricting the Military with ROA (rules off engagement) which ties our hands dealing with the Taliban and if your wondering which Politicians and Party I'm talking about have ever noticed the everytime the Democrats are in power The Middle East is on fire ?

How could it have been "won"?

 

Who by?

 

Certainly not the military coalition, as there was no military solution - all the military could do was suppress the problem as long as they were there.  That's not "winning", it's simply keeping a lid on things at best.

 

The idea that eventually they could train the Afghan Army and Police up to a level where they could do the job and take over instead was simply a non-starter.  Even if the OMLT's had had the necessary ability and experience, which very, very few did, the country was simply too fragmented and too divided, and while it could be united by religion it certainly couldn't by any occupying power  - except as a common enemy.

 

... and FWIW the ROE's were no more restrictive than they've been anywhere else for decades, if not the best part of a century, and the Soviets had far less restrictions but they came off equally badly.

 

Sorry, but the idea that if the gloves had been taken off then the coalition could have "battered" the Taliban into submission without providing any better alternative just doesn't cut it - nor, TBH, does it do justice to those who tried to find a solution in an impossible situation.

[BraveNewFahrenheit]

15 hours ago, Benroon said:

Are you in the right thread ?

 

[Smithydog]

 

Yes the final withdrawal has happened under President’s Biden watch. As blame is spread, I am sure there will be plenty spread around to many on both sides of the political agenda. I do find it a bit funny, when people claim it would have been so different under a continuation of the Trump presidency.

They obviously haven’t read his own words in a press release from his own office in April of this year. Some highlights.  “we can and should get out earlier.” “I made early withdraw possible” “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do.” “I planned to withdraw on May 1st”. Doesn’t sound that much would have been different. Just we would have been talking about it 3-4 months earlier!

 https://www.45office.com/news/statement-by-donald-j-trump-45th-president-of-the-united-states-of-america-04.18.21

The Taliban new the day would come when non-Afghan forces would leave. Unfortunately, it seems some, including US soldiers on the ground predicted it, as in this article from 2014.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/30/the-taliban-waiting-game-in-afghanistan-mapped-by-media-since-2009/

The Afghan people have seen foreign forces, in one form or another, come and go over centuries. Last time it was the Russians turn to understand the patient waiting game of ones locally seeking power and control. Now it is the turn of the Coalition forces to learn, not just the Americans.

My Opinion….. It is just another sad day in a series of seemingly never-ending power struggles for control of a long-suffering group of people.

 

[Benroon]

1 hour ago, mcambl61 said:

Biden is a career corrupt dementia ridden stooge and a puppet of the former Obama administration idiots who are making every single decision. 

The ridiculous community organizer Marxist mantra is in full control to destroy the country. 

But is he 'virtue signalling' ?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Stonker said:

How could it have been "won"?

Who by?

Certainly not the military coalition, as there was no military solution - all the military could do was suppress the problem as long as they were there.  That's not "winning", it's simply keeping a lid on things at best.

The idea that eventually they could train the Afghan Army and Police up to a level where they could do the job and take over instead was simply a non-starter.  Even if the OMLT's had had the necessary ability and experience, which very, very few did, the country was simply too fragmented and too divided, and while it could be united by religion it certainly couldn't by any occupying power  - except as a common enemy.

... and FWIW the ROE's were no more restrictive than they've been anywhere else for decades, if not the best part of a century, and the Soviets had far less restrictions but they came off equally badly.

Sorry, but the idea that if the gloves had been taken off then the coalition could have "battered" the Taliban into submission without providing any better alternative just doesn't cut it - nor, TBH, does it do justice to those who tried to find a solution in an impossible situation.

You see Stonker your thinking like a Politician not a Tactician here you seem to be comparing modern warfare with the British incursions into Afghanistan in the 1800's or the Soviet Incursion of the 1980's a lot has changed since then i.e Satellite imagery UAV's airframes and HELO's as well as far superior ISTAR assets.

I do agree with you reference The OMLT teams they had there work cut out with the ANA and ANP however I did see some promise during my time there with the Afghan Special Forces and Ministry of Interior Police (which we very good at dispatching Taliban).

Now bearing in mind Afghanistan is not so much a Country but an artificial line on a map with over 20 ethnic groups as well as many more tribes and clans and also very topographically diverse by the end of combat operations in 2014 The Coalition Forces had the Taliban well and truly fixed and hiding in their North Waziristan hidey holes.

Counter Insurgency Op's are never easy and it didn't help with 8 years of the Obama administration and the 7 month cluster of the Biden administration doing there best to destroy our gains on the battlefield but I'll stand by my point the Soldiers didn't lose this conflict the Politicians (especially the Democrat one's did) 

[Poolie]

29 minutes ago, 23RD said:

You see Stonker your thinking like a Politician not a Tactician here you seem to be comparing modern warfare with the British incursions into Afghanistan in the 1800's or the Soviet Incursion of the 1980's a lot has changed since then i.e Satellite imagery UAV's airframes and HELO's as well as far superior ISTAR assets.

I do agree with you reference The OMLT teams they had there work cut out with the ANA and ANP however I did see some promise during my time there with the Afghan Special Forces and Ministry of Interior Police (which we very good at dispatching Taliban).

Now bearing in mind Afghanistan is not so much a Country but an artificial line on a map with over 20 ethnic groups as well as many more tribes and clans and also very topographically diverse by the end of combat operations in 2014 The Coalition Forces had the Taliban well and truly fixed and hiding in their North Waziristan hidey holes.

Counter Insurgency Op's are never easy and it didn't help with 8 years of the Obama administration and the 7 month cluster of the Biden administration doing there best to destroy our gains on the battlefield but I'll stand by my point the Soldiers didn't lose this conflict the Politicians (especially the Democrat one's did) 

That was eight years ago. A long time.  Or three Presidents. Or two Vietnams.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Poolie

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Poolie said:

That was eight years ago. A long time.  Or three Presidents.

Yes but it feel on Joe Bidens watch .

[PBS]

2 hours ago, 9S_ said:

He was and Afghanistan had a presidential election. Girls could go to school. You had female judges, lawyers, journalists and politicians. The most popular show in Afghanistan was a Thailand Voice type shows. 
When Trump left office all provincial capitals were in Kabul’s hands, $1 Billion in US military equipment were secured. Kabul still had a president. 

As posted earlier by another member, 02/2020 trump announced all US forces, including thousands of specialist contractors, to be withdrawn by 01/05/21 (Biden extended to 31/08/21, compounding trump's misjudgement) which was the trigger for the eventual collapse of the Afghan government. Of course trump suffered a major electoral loss November 20 and ever since been an utter embarrassment as the proverbial sore loser. However, I do recall trump supporters being ecstatic about US withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus I assume many other US citizens.

trump was not responsible for establishing schools for girls, female police and so on, appointments first occurred before trump came to power.

[mcambl61]

19 minutes ago, PBS said:

As posted earlier by another member, 02/2020 trump announced all US forces, including thousands of specialist contractors, to be withdrawn by 01/05/21 (Biden extended to 31/08/21, compounding trump's misjudgement) which was the trigger for the eventual collapse of the Afghan government. Of course trump suffered a major electoral loss November 20 and ever since been an utter embarrassment as the proverbial sore loser. However, I do recall trump supporters being ecstatic about US withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus I assume many other US citizens.

trump was not responsible for establishing schools for girls, female police and so on, appointments first occurred before trump came to power.

Again, trump did not order the closure of Bagram, thus eliminating the fast response of air support for the feckless afghan army. 

 

Biden did. 

 

Own it. 

 

Biden is a career corrupt dementia ridden stooge and a puppet. 

 

Own it. 

Your trump derangement is ridiculous. Your hatred is very sad. 

 

 

Stop the weak deflection and own it. 

 

Biden has been wrong on practically every foreign policy he's ever had. 

 

Own it and grow up. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by mcambl61

[9S_]

35 minutes ago, PBS said:

As posted earlier by another member, 02/2020 trump announced all US forces, including thousands of specialist contractors, to be withdrawn by 01/05/21 (Biden extended to 31/08/21, compounding trump's misjudgement) which was the trigger for the eventual collapse of the Afghan government. Of course trump suffered a major electoral loss November 20 and ever since been an utter embarrassment as the proverbial sore loser. However, I do recall trump supporters being ecstatic about US withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus I assume many other US citizens.

trump was not responsible for establishing schools for girls, female police and so on, appointments first occurred before trump came to power.

I wonder how many provincial capitals were lost under Trumps watch? 
 

Biden bragged about withdrawing a month ago. He even touted that it’s his main foreign policy achievements. 
 

I though liberals and democrats care about people of color and women?? I guess they don’t care about the future rape of millions of Afghan women. 

[thai3]

Kieth's view

 

[longwood50]

3 hours ago, Poolie said:

Anyway, whether it be Biden's, Trump's or whoever's fault, they royally messed up again.  Against some sheep herders.   Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

No not really.  Whether it was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan there never was a reason to be there nor a will to destroy the enemy by a annihilating  them.  Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex that would push the USA into senseless conflicts while they made billions.  I truly believe that is the sole reason for the USA's involvement and they never wanted to end the war.  After all, the longer it went on, the more billions those in the munitions business made. 

 

[Benroon]

58 minutes ago, mcambl61 said:

Again, trump did not order the closure of Bagram, thus eliminating the fast response of air support for the feckless afghan army. 

Biden did. 

Own it. 

Biden is a career corrupt dementia ridden stooge and a puppet. 

Own it. 

Your trump derangement is ridiculous. Your hatred is very sad. 

Stop the weak deflection and own it. 

Biden has been wrong on practically every foreign policy he's ever had. 

Own it and grow up. 

With every 'Own it' I cringed a bit more !

[Stonker]

28 minutes ago, 23RD said:

You see Stonker your thinking like a Politician not a Tactician here

Anything but!

I'm talking strictly as a tactician - there was simply no military solution, and keeping a lid on things while waiting for politicians to come up with an answer was just delaying the inevitable.

28 minutes ago, 23RD said:

... you seem to be comparing modern warfare with the British incursions into Afghanistan in the 1800's or the Soviet Incursion of the 1980's a lot has changed since then i.e Satellite imagery UAV's airframes and HELO's as well as far superior ISTAR assets

Unfortunately the Taliban weren't interested in "modern warfare" - they had no reason or need to be.

I'd hardly call the Soviet occupation an "incursion".  They occupied the country for ten years, with over 100,000 troops in country at a time, and far more in the way of armour and aircraft than the US coalition.

Unfortunately the West refused to learn anything from it.

 

Of course the US coalition had "far superior ISTAR assets" - it'd be difficult to have less, as the Taliban had none. Despite that, I'm sure they knew far more about your plans and movements than you did about theirs.

1 hour ago, 23RD said:

I do agree with you reference The OMLT teams they had there work cut out with the ANA and ANP however I did see some promise during my time there with the Afghan Special Forces and Ministry of Interior Police (which we very good at dispatching Taliban)

I think you may have misunderstood me about the OMLTs. I wasn't suggesting they had a difficult time, but that although they were the key part of the training process they were generally only tolerated because of their ability to call in air and fire support.  That particularly applied to the British elements, where they were "mentoring" and training two above their rank and experience, which was about as insulting to the Afghanis as it gets and turned the exercise into a farce.

 

A large part of the problem was that while some units were "very good at dispatching Taliban" they often weren't "dispatching Taliban" at all, but were simply making the most of the chance to dispatch local opposition so that they could secure their own hold over the local area exactly as the warlords had done - which was what many were.

1 hour ago, 23RD said:

Now bearing in mind Afghanistan is not so much a Country but an artificial line on a map with over 20 ethnic groups as well as many more tribes and clans and also very topographically diverse by the end of combat operations in 2014 The Coalition Forces had the Taliban well and truly fixed and hiding in their North Waziristan hidey holes.

Some of the coalition's "cultural advisers" weren't even aware that there were two different main languages in Afghanistan - I only wish I was exaggerating. 

Sorry, but when the coalition ended combat ops and handed over responsibility for Afghanistan to Afghanistan at the end of 2014, the Taliban had not been pushed out of Afghanistan across the border into North Waziristan, which for those who are unaware is part of Pakistan not Afghanistan.

That was just an excuse for the coalition to start getting out while trying to save some dignity.

The reality was that 2014 had been one of the worst years of fighting in Afghanistan, with more Afghan security forces killed than in any previous year of the war: over 5,000 just in 2014, which was more than the coalition had had killed since operations began in 2001 (3,485), and it was also the worst year for civilian casualties.

1 hour ago, 23RD said:

Counter Insurgency Op's are never easy and it didn't help with 8 years of the Obama administration and the 7 month cluster of the Biden administration doing there best to destroy our gains on the battlefield but I'll stand by my point the Soldiers didn't lose this conflict the Politicians (especially the Democrat one's did) 

While I agree with you about COIN, there were no "gains on the battlefield", however nice it'd be to imagine there were and that the sacrifices and lives lost hadn't been in vain and that the politicians threw away what the military had achieved.

 

The reality was that while the politicians threw the soldiers' lives away, there was never any possibility of a military victory - it was just a question of how long it took before anyone would admit it.

[Stonker]

1 hour ago, mcambl61 said:

Again, trump did not order the closure of Bagram, thus eliminating the fast response of air support for the feckless afghan army

Just to put that into context, in 2014 before the coalition declared that the war had been won and they were packing up, the ANA asked for air support 400 times.

They were given it on 30 occasions.

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

Icing in the cake. Poor guys...

And this one, World War Z stuff:

 

[JamesE]

10 hours ago, Poolie said:

Extremely sorry. Mea culpa. Iran. What a difference it made eh?

I had it pointed out to me by @Stonkerthat the Iran version came after the Afghanistan version. So, I stand corrected. I found that both of them derived from an earlier threat from General Curtis LeMay in 1967/68-ish regarding North Vietnam which itself was poached from Art Buchwald, an American humorist, from a still earlier column. What tangled webs we weave.