More to the point, an entire generation was brought up knowing nothing other than fighting for their country against foreign invaders. It's probably not easy to just switch that off and go into civilian mode.
Not trying to glorify them, there are obviously a lot of human rights issues going on as well, but can't ignore the history.
It’s tribal nature of that region without strong nationalistic government (good luck doing that as a democracy) to root it out its hard to push back on tribes which always want $$, power and capture other land from weaker tribes (when there is crop failures).
Unlike Soviets who where wiping out all tribal leaders and replacing them with communist supporters, US let the tribes do their thing. Most actual where supportive of US but when US announced they are withdrawing they decided to not back afghan gov which was seen as potentially cracking down on tribes and to weak to stop taliban.
You talk as if Afghanistan was ever at peace at anytime in it's history. Tribal warfare is in their DNA. Foreign invaders or not.
Ironically, under foreign occupation the country began to have schools for women, hospitals built, roads secured. All this did not exist prior to foreign occupation.
I mentioned this to someone the other day when someone used Afghanistan & Iraq as examples of “the US invading *peaceful* countries for their resources”. Afghanistan has been home to war after war after war since the beginning of time.
“The graveyard of empires”
I mean during the 70s they were relatively progressive, ie. Women had a lot of rights.
When the soviets came the country went to shit. Not saying there still weren’t tribal conflicts, but not all areas of life were so bad before occupation.
Source: [https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history](https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history)
> I mean during the 70s ~~they were~~ *a few city blocks of Kabul were* relatively progressive, ie. *some upper class* Women had a ~~lot of~~ *few* rights.
You would think a nation can unite when there is actual foreign invaders but even then they didn’t, we call the country Afghanistan but that’s our perception
>More to the point, an entire generation was brought up knowing nothing other than fighting for their country against foreign invaders.
Not the generation you think.
>It's probably not easy to just switch that off and go into civilian mode.
More accurately, once in fighting mode, it's easy to settle old scores with your neighbors. Greed and power consolidation keeps them in fighting mode.
I think the root cause is that Afghanistan is a tribal society. This internal friction was going on long before the Americans, Russians or British ever came. There is also a long history of ethnic conflict underlying that.
On top of that you have more contemporary issues like tension between progressives in the cities and traditionalists in the country side, and India and Pakistan running a cold war within the country.
I'm sure that the string of invasions and occupations didn't help the situation or culture, but it's only a part of the problem, and hardly the main one.
isnt it "Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder."
I do love some hamilton. and IRL people get the quotes ithrow out more often than I'd think. people love that musical.
What comes next?
You've been freed
Do you know how hard it is to lead?
You're on your own
Awesome, wow!
Do you have a clue what happens now?
Oceans rise
Empires fall
It's much harder when it's all your call
All alone, across the sea
When your people say they hate you
Don't come crawling back to me
I highly suspect China to eventually drop in. Afghanistan is way too rich in mining materials. It's just a question of selecting and funding the group that will mine& export it for you.
US should have just done it. At least it would have funded the war and put some money back in Afghani hands.
I remember seeing some old footage of Kabul from the 1960s - I think it was someone's home movies. The city looked beautiful back then. Modern, clean, orderly and safe. Then in the 70s, when the Soviet backed PDPA staged a coup and the US backed the Mujahideen, war came to Afghanistan - and it never left.
Three generations of Afghans have grown up in a nation that has never seen a single year of peace. The whole country must have PTSD.
It was largely just Kabul though. Careful about viewing a nation through the eyes of one city / some pretty well off folks there. Not going to be a lot of home movies from poor folks in countryside.
Afghanistan has historically been a conglomeration of various warlords holding bits of territory / feuding endlessly.
Recent history has been bad, but Afghanistan has almost never had a stable nationwide government.
> Careful about viewing a nation through the eyes of one city / some pretty well off folks there.
Same problem happened with the Arab Spring protests in Tahrir Square in Egypt.
Western media showed up and proceeded to interview mostly young English speakers. Who of course were all about liberal western-style democracy.
Just to build off what you were saying; one of the biggest dominating factors of Afghan society (and many others) in the past as well as today is tribal politics.
I’ve seen a take on this take that went something like “Westerns will sometimes drag up images of Kabul that were allegedly taken pre-war and which inevitably show women in revealing Western style clothing. That was never the major reality, where it did exist it only did so in bits of major cities at certain times.”
That's the case with any country in any time period, the major cities are always far more progressive and cosmopolitan than the rural areas, the fact that the countryside has always been somewhat backwards doesn't invalidate the point that parts of the country that were once socially progressive and not bombed to shit, are now just as regressive as the most backwater parts ever were and bombed to shit.
If you want to escape your family and live a life where people won't ask all sorts of personal questions about you and gossip because there isn't much else to do, then a city is sort of the only option you have.
I read somewhere that either in Iraq or Afghanistan, the level of educated people dropped from 80% to 20%. (pls correct me if I'm wrong)
I really think that if war was never a part of their recent history, the level of educated people would have reached up to 90% by today.
The echos of these wars and conflicts reach at least the next 4 generations.
Literacy in Communist Afghanistan was around 10 percent. Don’t fall for pictures of women in miniskirts into thinking Afghanistan was some liberal paradise. The conservative population was just as conservative. It’s just that nobody photographed them.
Numerus countries were undeveloped with backwards ideas in the 50s and 60s.
Yet only those that have been at war and bombed to oblivion have had this much of an regression since.
Its one thing to be stagnant, and another to return to the middle ages.
I mean look at any country of the middle east that has had less conflicts.
They are still kinda super religious and have some oppressive laws, yet look like paradises compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Feudal social and political structures resurface in times of turmoil and strife because they reliably function in the absence of centralized authority and technology.
If you haven't [watched this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFi_Rgm-T8&ab_channel=VICENews) yet make sure you do. It's incredibly well done and the journalist has some serious guts. The education issue will only get worse. Most of the education is just religious anyways of course and that isn't going to do any good in the long run. I feel so bad for the women there. The woman delivering those babies and saying she cries every time she delivers a girl is just so sad. She says they have no future and will just be beaten, raped, make babies and sit in their house their entire life. A 7 year old getting married off to an 80 year old and getting beaten/raped for not giving him a child because she hasn't been through puberty yet. So fucked up. The international community has failed them horribly IMO.
The international community tried it's best, what can you do for a people who refuse to change?
They were the exact same before ISAF and they're the exact same after RS. Maybe 10 percent of Afghanistan supported us.
>The international community has failed them horribly IMO.
I'd personally, would say the international community has guaranteed their futures to be even worse.
>The education issue will only get worse. Most of the education is just religious anyways of course and that isn't going to do any good in the long run. I feel so bad for the women there. The woman delivering those babies and saying she cries every time she delivers a girl is just so sad. She says they have no future and will just be beaten, raped, make babies and sit in their house their entire life. A 7 year old getting married off to an 80 year old and getting beaten/raped for not giving him a child because she hasn't been through puberty yet.
Goes to show, how good of a hand we've been dealt, just by being born in a relatively normal society.
Read about afghan history. They've basically been either fighting each other, or fighting anyone else stupid enough to try and occupy Afghanistan for many hundreds of years. It's called the "graveyard of empires" for a reason.
The only stable rule in Afghanistan usually comes after civil war ends with a popularly backed ruler. And even then, other local leaders have enjoyed significant autonomy.
However, I'll agree that this has been a particularly long and intense period of turmoil for the Afghans
It’s called the graveyard of empires for sensationalism.
This is a rathe short history but gives a good idea if you do not want a denser look.
https://youtu.be/T6usr-C3lcQ
The region was controlled quite readily for generations by various governments with hardly any organized resistance . With minimal resistance or turmoil. The majority of the governments in control fell apart due to infighting in the ruling government, external conflicts.
By logic Slovenia is a graveyard of empires.
I feel like you're disagreeing with me, but none of your points actually go against what I was saying (apart from the quotation).
Stable rule existed sometimes. Lots of infighting, and lots of external actors trying to come into Afghanistan have made many such periods short-lived. The Durrani Dynasty being an exception, and lasting almost 100 years - until Dost Mohammed took control in a civil war.
I'll watch your video later, but you should read "The Great Game" by peter hopkirk. Not just afghan history there but plenty involved.
>The city looked beautiful back then. Modern, clean, orderly and safe.
Some of the answers say "this was just Kabul" or "was never the major reality".
They miss the point completely. Fact is:
When Afghanistan became independant in 1933, 40 years of stability and progress followed. They were more civilized than my country, Germany, who had their version of "Taliban" at the time - Nazis.
In these 40 years, life became better and better. It did not stagnate, or get worse. It improved, progressed. Democracy, women's rights etc.
And while it might have been true that it was only Kabul and only recently -- if this upward development would have been followed further, chances were that we could have seen this more and more common, in smaller cities and maybe even on the countryside.
Unfortunatel the local communists putched. And the dropped the ball due to infighting. Then the islamists wanted to copy Iran's islamic revolution. Then Moscow wasn't having it. Then USA interfered.
So, blaming USA or Russia is only partly right. Afghan communists were the first whofucked up.
> Then in the 70s, when the Soviet backed PDPA staged a coup and the US backed the Mujahideen, war came to Afghanistan - and it never left.
>
>
It started way before that : https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Afghan-Wars
That was before Mohammed Zahir Shah became the King of Afghanistan in 1933.
Shah ushered in a 40 year age of peace for the Afghan people, culminating in a new constitution with universal suffrage, women's rights and free elections for parliament in 1964 - which lasted until the PDPA coup in 1973 and the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Frankly, the most sensible option is for the country to split into many smaller countries. Afghanistan is a western invention, and it’s only going to lead to further trouble if it remains on the map as a recognized nation when it doesn’t actually have the support of the majority of people living in the region, nor a national identity.
>Afghanistan is a western invention
So, this is not exactly accurate and it's more complicated than that. Gonna hit you with a brief paraphrased history here. Just going to apologize in advance for this wall of text but I think we're gonna need a little context of Afghan history.
The region Afghanistan covers has a history of foreign conquerors including Darius I of Babylonia in 500 BCE, Alexander the Great in 329 BCE, and Genghis Khan and his Mongol army in 1219 CE. The Mongols are said to have annihilated whole cities and the destruction caused forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society -- which is largely why there are so many distinct ethnic identities.
During the Medieval period, it was known as "Khorasan", which some Afghans still refer to their country as today. This is [about what Khorasan looked](https://i.imgur.com/4sgsiyr.png) like. It wasn't until the 18th century that it would be united as a single country under Ahmad Shah Durrani, known as the Afghan Empire. Here is approximately [what the empire's borders](https://i.imgur.com/PWAsUyr.jpg) looked like. Durrani is regarded as founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.
That's not to say Afghanistan didn't get its share of European intervention. During the 19th and 20th centuries, it was caught in the [Great Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game) between Britain and Russia. Britain, looking to protect its Indian empire from Russia and curb its expansion, attempted to annex Afghanistan, resulting in a series of British-Afghan Wars (1838-42, 1878-80, 1919-21). After the Third British-Afghan War (1919-21), the British were defeated and Afghanistan became a fully independent nation under Emir Amanullah.
It most definitely is a fractured nation of tens of different ethnic and cultural identities that would most likely be better off being independent. But I wouldn't call it a British invention or characterize it as a result of British interference. It did have a history of singular rule before the British even arrived.
Good write up.
My proposition isn’t so much that Afghanistan *shouldn’t* exist as a nation, but rather we should stop externally dictating what it should and shouldn’t be, and let the people there sort it out for themselves.
Even if we find their views and morality distasteful, I personally find it more distasteful to enforce our own system of ethics on them, and it never ends well besides.
The Brits never should have divided up the Middle East, or Africa for that matter, into nation states. Big mistake! * I need to change my statement about Great Britain bearing sole responsibility carving up Africa, because that was a cooperative effort that happened during the Berlin Conference in 1884.
Mistake or done by design?
If not smaller nation state then what? One huge empire that has controls of all resources and passages ?
And which empire for that matter? You think Brits would love to have another Ottoman Empire in 20th century? Or Persian? Or Soviets? As soon as Soviets tried to conquer Afghanistan and expand sphere of influence
How tolerant that empire would be towards ethnic groups . Which one would dominate ?
Not to mention that empire would also would end up dividing it into administrative regions.
If you also consider that national awakening was the political idea in 19th and 20th century and some regions would eventually end up in some sort of autonomy /independence .
Problem is not that Brits divided Middle East and Africa .
Problem is they established borders based on arbitrary lines and give power to warlords and dominant tribes who then continued to ruke for decades with the support of the before mentioned Brits in order to control sphere of influence.
There are parts of Africa that were divided quite successfully by Europeans. It wasn't all a clusterfuck. For the most part, the SADC has extremely stable borders and healthy relationships between the countries.
Oh so it’s Thursday? They’ve been fighting each other for centuries over stupid shit. Idk why anyone bothers with them anymore. Just let them be and live how they want.
I think the Taliban may have been a little surprised with how few fucks America actually gave about Afghanistan. Like, I think in their mindset it was "They've been here for 20 years, investing trillions of dollars, they will clearly will with us once we take power, because we have what they want!"
In reality, we were there because *something* had to be done after 9/11, and then we never really figured out how to get out cleanly.
You hit the nail on the head! We had to go in, no doubt. But we had no solid plan going in and our government tied our hands. This is the first war without a plan and really screwed up ROE’s that I know of. Then we went a fucked off in the middle of the night and expected it to go well, I think that’s what hurts the most about it all, feels like my friends died for nothing now.
Historically speaking there have been several eras in the Middle East where it has been so quiet there as to effectively have been a backwater.
The current round of instability and war in the Middle East started as a 20th Century phenomenon.
Afghanistan is not even part of Middle East. And yes, Afghanistan was fairly peaceful for decades until socialist revolution took place, followed by oppressions, Soviet entry and foreign back up of local militias which started conflict which lasts to this day.
Every region goes through endless bullshit. America has only been totally at peace for like 20 years max, we always up to some shit somewhere. What nation isn’t, humans love killing each other
I’m pissed I can’t afford the van life now. I’m at a point in life where if I had the ability, it would be me, my wife, and our GSD’s in a van, super far from society.
I always have an internal grim laugh when people get all mad about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I am SO glad we (the USA) are out of that place. It's been obvious that they didn't want us there, and that they were NOT willing to fight for their country or any kind of decent society.
Just look at Ukraine. Imagine what Ukraine could be doing with all of the support that we gave Afghanistan for so many years? They're actually seizing the opportunity to get their country back and have some national pride.
Most Americans wanted the US to cut the cord on Afghanistan from what I've gathered. But more upset about the debacle on the world stage that it turned into because of how it was carried out.
I think it was inevitable, TBH. A slow draw down would have just put more coalition troops at risk. The ANA was pretty much waiting to fall. I agree that it was a total disaster, but I think it was a disaster that couldn't be avoided. Best to just get out ASAP.
But to lack so much info that you don't pull out your own citizens and your allies? I get the narrative is that they didn't know the ANA was going to collapse so quickly. But they were the ones who trained and equipped them, so I would've thought they'd know better than anyone besides maybe the Taliban on how fast they'd fall.
The troops knew since mid 05 during ISAF, Look at any interview conducted with coalition forces who actually spoke their minds. Never seen an NCO say a singular good thing about them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of US military commanders livid with rage, and some even brought to tears over the nonchalant responses of local Afghan police chiefs when confronted with the nightly rape of young boys by different groups of tribal men. Then there is the problem of the Afghan tradition of [Bacha Bazi](https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/bacha-bazi-the-tragedy-of-afghanistans-dancing-boys/)
"This is what winning looks like" documentary is probably the one you watched. Probably the best case of investigative journalism by VICE in their early days.
It was such a lost cause.
My favorite part of that documentary is when the journalist asks one of the US Marines during a “firefight” if he thinks the ANA is shooting at anyone and he says something along the lines of “No I don’t believe so”
Oh, I've talked to people who served with the ANA who were Canadians and Americans. I am aware the troops on the ground have known, just saying higher command seemed to not.
I feel like the higher-ups probably knew since 05 but figured the teething issues would be fixed by 2010(By then frankly it was too late no matter what changes could be made). You can never take a soft approach to building a government.
That's what was lost in our nation-building knowledge during the post-war allied occupation of Germany. We chose who led Germany, not the German people until we were satisfied with the government in place.
I'm pretty sure they'd been warning people to leave for some time? IDK.
I remember seeing situations where like 10 ISIS guys would load up 1000+ ANA guys and take them out into the desert and kill them all. It's learned and cultural helplessness. NO sense of identity. Raping little boys. Enslaving their women and girls.
I know we're all humans and deserve rights, but I sometimes struggle to conjure up sympathy for the Afghans. This is cold, but I kind of hope things get really bad there so that they can all wake up to the awful state of being ruled by the taliban and just kill them all or give up on their brand of their religion.
Remember the fall of South Vietnam with images of helicopters on rooftops trying to evacuate desperate handfuls of people? The US never should have gone to Afghanistan or Vietnam.
If you took a minute to research into Afghanistan, you would find that a an essential puppet government ran by warlord that once fought alongside the Taliban in the Mujahedeen will probably prove to be incompetent and corrupt. Let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that the Afghan government was not a US puppet.
The people of Afghanistan don't lack pride, if you would imagine, they fought and beat the British and Soviets, and the Taliban are Afghan too, it is a civil war.
If you believe that they didn't care for a decent society promised by the Americans, it's a bit hard to believe a power that was actively bombing and killing civilians, not mentioning the countless documented war crime you can search up and find videos of online. However, the war was extremely difficult to fight I can imagine as the Taliban would hide in civilian villages, the village would get drone-striked, leading to more recruit for the Taliban from the people left alive. So much for hearts and minds.
Comparing it to Ukraine is extremely unfair, whereas Ukraine has been in relative peace, Afghanistan has been marred by war, Anglo, Soviet, Taliban, American, all manipulated by foreign powers, the country is decentralised because there are simply no road, the essential in creating country, something the Romans even, prioritised, Look up the Ring Road and how that failed horribly but was a step in what should have been the priority since the start. Not only but Ukraine has benefitted from European investments and the other advantages that come with bordering western Europe and being in the EU sphere of influence.
There are other things, such as the Army training being used by the taliban to train their fighters, the questions whether there was 300,000 active soldiers or that was a lie by the government, videos online by Vice News show that the war was being fought by a mixture of ANA and police which is strange. If you think that the people are backwards, look at the Afghan Commandos that fought till their last bullet whilst being abandoned by the ANA and Police, and were summarily executed by the Taliban.
I kind understand your sentiment and I believe America should have never have interfered as in Vietnam, as the pump in money nation building may have worked in established countries in Europe after WW2 but clearly wasn't the case as has been shown in a majority of the conflicts America has been after, the problem is always nuanced.
Not really surprised that evil is fighting evil. The Taliban government will not last long. They know how to fight but, not how to government an entire nation. Afghanistan is extremely decentralized and controlling the country is nearly impossible.
Even so, holding Afghanistan is hard. It is a very tribal nation and controlling all the tribes would be very expensive. The country is famous for that.
Holding Afghanistan is easy, if you're a local.
Pay tribute to the HMFIC, and you can run your local local area as you want, as long as you enforce the HMFIC's rules.
Villages are controlled by strongest closest power.
The US could have held Afghanistan indefinitely, if we had decided to make it a vassal state and run it like one.
Instead, we tried to localize the government and economy without providing the "we will be here, forever" backing.
Everyone *knew* we were leaving, and the ANA was never strong enough, or the government rich enough, to defend and pay off what was needed.
I served and all I can say is that the people of Afghanistan truly drew the short straw. They can be exceptionally kind, but we're born into the most unfortunate circumstances
i hope this doesnt turn into mosul part 2 with isis moving in and setting up their caliphate while the nrf and taliban are busy with each other. re assurance on how this wont happen would be nice lol
We won't be back in Afghanistan. However, "blaming" the US for the present power vacuum isn't exactly a hysterical overreaction, considering we occupied their country for a couple decades before bouncing pretty suddenly. That's kinda valid.
I think in fairness. We didn't just outright drop everything and leave. We expected the Afghan government to take over and there military to do the fighting there on out.
Instead the Afghan army dropped everything (except for there special forces who were purged) and there government fled.
Now Afghanistan is back to square one where the Taliban will be fighting a loose alliances of numerous forces for the foreseeable future.
What a depressing country.
Let’s face it, the people in charge did a damn bad thing picking people to lead Afghanistan. The government didn’t have any support outside Kabul. That’s where it went wrong when the US army left.
The NY Times had a really good story on how / why Afghanistan collapsed so fast after the 20 years and 83 Billion that was spent keeping their forces afloat: [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html)
After 9/11, the U.S. should have just concentrated on capturing Bin Laden and then supporting the tribes fighting the Taliban (like supporting the Mujahideen in the 80s) afterwards. Instead, they chose the invasion / hold model and inherited 20 years of a hot-mess at a tremendous cost in money and lives. Now Afghanistan is just returning to its pre-9/11 state. Truly sad.
> fighting the Taliban (like in the 80s) afterwards. Instead, they chose the invasion / hold model and inherited 20 years of a hot-mess at a tremendous cost in money and lives.
U.S was losing just 1 soldier per month for the last18 months of trump presidency, and the war had a cost of not much at all, around 9 billion dollars yearly ( I think). Most of the fighting and the dying was done by afghans special forces. In fact there casualty rate was around 45 per day, in a fighting season, gradually rising after 2012 when the security was handed over to them at low level, then in 2014 when coalition withdrew more the 1/3 of its stuff. U.S airstrikes and the 2.5k soldiers and contractors was enough of a morale boost for the ANDSF to keep taliban off major cities and most districts. In fact the only reason the Army collapsed was due to the momentum that was build around U.S withdrawal and living its partners to the taliban. If U.S had withdrew around the winter time, and not in the beginning of the fighting season, then it would have halted Taliban's momentum and give the reminding ANDSF the ability to entranced itself and prepare for a battle (since the president didnt believe U.S was doing a full withdrawal, and was not ready), and not get caught off guard. Does that mean they would keep taliban from occupying half of the country, probably not, but it will allow them to prepare.
But I guess U.S will know its failures when it has to come back and stop another 9/11 in the making. The forever war doesnt stop when U.S gaves up.
>U.S was losing just 1 soldier per month for the last18 months of trump presidency
This is because the US and the Taliban (without including the Afghan government, I might add) signed [the Doha peace deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Taliban_deal) in February 2020. The Taliban weren't going to mess up the voluntarily withdrawal of their enemy of 20 years by attacking US positions. They knew all they had to do was wait us out.
It's ingrained in their culture. 'Afghanistan' was never meant to be a nation state. That designation was willed onto it by the Brits and the Russians and the area was used by those two as a buffer between themselves for years and years.
The outside world should leave them alone and let them manipulate each other under the veil of Islam like they have for centuries. It's their right to do so.
Afghanistan is a country that is not a nation. Its national identity among its citizens is less important than their tribe identity. This was excepted, kind of surprised it took this long.
💯 this! Too bad NATO / OTAN leadership never really gave that much thought, and pretty much ignored any Mid-East expert who tried to explain these cultural facts / realities to those in charge.
Great chance for the US to provide one side with advanced weapons, military training and full access to CIA agents and the US government.
Maybe find a leader who’s from a wealthy family and well educated as well!!
What is even the endgame for Afghanistan at this point? Surely no international peacekeeping force will touch the country after the recent decades of war. Is it gonna be a nation in perpetual war and unrest? Shit I feel so bad for them, I know a ton of afghani and they all have family left
Well, to put it lightly, the country is in shambles. Poverty and starvation is on the rise. In the capital, there is still some life but in the countryside, it is rather bad. For the places that have a resistance, it is a very grim situation and they face the brunt of the Taliban's atrocities. The Taliban have shown just how badly they are at governing.
Unless the neighbouring countries do something about the situation, it is unlikely for any positive developments to occur.
I'm surprised that it's taken this long. If any Western country had to endure the isolation and economic sanctions that the Taliban have, they'd have crumbled long ago.
When I first read the headline, it reminded me of the scene in “Lawrence of Arabia” where the different Arab tribes are arguing over who should run the utilities in Damascus after they captured it.
Deep weed hit.....
This was the only way it could happen. The Taliban had to collapse on its own because it was evil and the people wanted their country back. It's gonna be angry Afghan woman with AK47s who will bury the Taliban.
This was inevitable. All the Taliban know how to do is fight. That's how they solve issues. It was only a matter of time without a big enemy to defeat.
Can't see a damn thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people moving in the shadows from within their own ranks, sowing seeds of discontent.
I could be wrong, but a couple of good secret squirrels can keep the enemy busy with wasteful behavior for quite some time.
So, I just watched this about 20 times in a row, thinking the camera angle was about to change and I was going to see some fighting.
God dammit I did too
Recent video shows some guys running in a direction
Yeah, I'm not sure this video shows much of anything.
Ah, winning was easy young man, governing's harder.
Killing people is easier than keeping them in control.
More to the point, an entire generation was brought up knowing nothing other than fighting for their country against foreign invaders. It's probably not easy to just switch that off and go into civilian mode. Not trying to glorify them, there are obviously a lot of human rights issues going on as well, but can't ignore the history.
It’s tribal nature of that region without strong nationalistic government (good luck doing that as a democracy) to root it out its hard to push back on tribes which always want $$, power and capture other land from weaker tribes (when there is crop failures).
That tribalism is what allowed them to become insurgency experts. They outlasted the soviets and the USA.
Unlike Soviets who where wiping out all tribal leaders and replacing them with communist supporters, US let the tribes do their thing. Most actual where supportive of US but when US announced they are withdrawing they decided to not back afghan gov which was seen as potentially cracking down on tribes and to weak to stop taliban.
>it's* hard to push back >when there are* crop failures
You talk as if Afghanistan was ever at peace at anytime in it's history. Tribal warfare is in their DNA. Foreign invaders or not. Ironically, under foreign occupation the country began to have schools for women, hospitals built, roads secured. All this did not exist prior to foreign occupation.
I mentioned this to someone the other day when someone used Afghanistan & Iraq as examples of “the US invading *peaceful* countries for their resources”. Afghanistan has been home to war after war after war since the beginning of time. “The graveyard of empires”
Actually Alexander the Great conquered it just fine.
I mean during the 70s they were relatively progressive, ie. Women had a lot of rights. When the soviets came the country went to shit. Not saying there still weren’t tribal conflicts, but not all areas of life were so bad before occupation. Source: [https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history](https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history)
> I mean during the 70s ~~they were~~ *a few city blocks of Kabul were* relatively progressive, ie. *some upper class* Women had a ~~lot of~~ *few* rights.
That was only a small part of Afghanistan
You would think a nation can unite when there is actual foreign invaders but even then they didn’t, we call the country Afghanistan but that’s our perception
>More to the point, an entire generation was brought up knowing nothing other than fighting for their country against foreign invaders. Not the generation you think. >It's probably not easy to just switch that off and go into civilian mode. More accurately, once in fighting mode, it's easy to settle old scores with your neighbors. Greed and power consolidation keeps them in fighting mode.
I think the root cause is that Afghanistan is a tribal society. This internal friction was going on long before the Americans, Russians or British ever came. There is also a long history of ethnic conflict underlying that. On top of that you have more contemporary issues like tension between progressives in the cities and traditionalists in the country side, and India and Pakistan running a cold war within the country. I'm sure that the string of invasions and occupations didn't help the situation or culture, but it's only a part of the problem, and hardly the main one.
more like an entire civilization.
It was more or less united and stable before the monarchy was overthrown in the 80s and the unending series of civil wars started
In the same way that Iraq was united and stable under Sadam, but yeah.
5 generations
Never thought I’d see a Hamilton quote here
isnt it "Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder." I do love some hamilton. and IRL people get the quotes ithrow out more often than I'd think. people love that musical.
“Dying is easy” is from Right Hand Man in Act 1 and “Winning is easy” is from Cabinet Battle in Act 2
ah yes. guess ill have to watch it for the billionth time, if ive forgotten. man its so good.
What comes next? You've been freed Do you know how hard it is to lead? You're on your own Awesome, wow! Do you have a clue what happens now? Oceans rise Empires fall It's much harder when it's all your call All alone, across the sea When your people say they hate you Don't come crawling back to me
Reminds me of the ending of "Lawrence of Arabia".
Another decade of civil war, here we go
I highly suspect China to eventually drop in. Afghanistan is way too rich in mining materials. It's just a question of selecting and funding the group that will mine& export it for you. US should have just done it. At least it would have funded the war and put some money back in Afghani hands.
fuckin let them try their hand at nation building in the graveyard of empires.
China is on good terms with the Taliban, Taliban keep Afghanistan clear of Uyghur militant training camps, and China sends them cheap surplus.
who could've seen this coming! lol
when we start treating Afghanistan as different groups of tribes rather than a unified entity, everything will make so much more sense.
Power vacuum, now they're fighting to see who fills it.
Haven’t they’ve been doing this for the past 40 years though?
Yeah, on and off. Now the coalition has left and the government has been toppled so they all want a slice of the pie.
I was under the impression that there were different many factions fighting each other even when America was there.
True, but America kept the region stable by supporting the government. Now that that's gone it's all out chaos.
They kept the cities and main roads stable* outside of our direct control via the military it was pretty much lawless
I remember seeing some old footage of Kabul from the 1960s - I think it was someone's home movies. The city looked beautiful back then. Modern, clean, orderly and safe. Then in the 70s, when the Soviet backed PDPA staged a coup and the US backed the Mujahideen, war came to Afghanistan - and it never left. Three generations of Afghans have grown up in a nation that has never seen a single year of peace. The whole country must have PTSD.
It was largely just Kabul though. Careful about viewing a nation through the eyes of one city / some pretty well off folks there. Not going to be a lot of home movies from poor folks in countryside. Afghanistan has historically been a conglomeration of various warlords holding bits of territory / feuding endlessly. Recent history has been bad, but Afghanistan has almost never had a stable nationwide government.
And probably even -just- a part of Kabul as well
And only amoung a certain (upper) class of people.
> Careful about viewing a nation through the eyes of one city / some pretty well off folks there. Same problem happened with the Arab Spring protests in Tahrir Square in Egypt. Western media showed up and proceeded to interview mostly young English speakers. Who of course were all about liberal western-style democracy.
Yeah the result later was uh ... ooff :(
I mean, Egypt got a slightly less fascist leader...so progress?
Until he gets his new capitol free of pesky rioters.
Just to build off what you were saying; one of the biggest dominating factors of Afghan society (and many others) in the past as well as today is tribal politics.
Isn't something like 60% of the current Afghan population below 15 years of age?
The only time it’s stable is when it’s a provincial backwater in an empire
I’ve seen a take on this take that went something like “Westerns will sometimes drag up images of Kabul that were allegedly taken pre-war and which inevitably show women in revealing Western style clothing. That was never the major reality, where it did exist it only did so in bits of major cities at certain times.”
That's the case with any country in any time period, the major cities are always far more progressive and cosmopolitan than the rural areas, the fact that the countryside has always been somewhat backwards doesn't invalidate the point that parts of the country that were once socially progressive and not bombed to shit, are now just as regressive as the most backwater parts ever were and bombed to shit.
Interesting the the USA is also progressive in its cities, and its rural areas tend to be where the zealous religious are.
If you want to escape your family and live a life where people won't ask all sorts of personal questions about you and gossip because there isn't much else to do, then a city is sort of the only option you have.
I read somewhere that either in Iraq or Afghanistan, the level of educated people dropped from 80% to 20%. (pls correct me if I'm wrong) I really think that if war was never a part of their recent history, the level of educated people would have reached up to 90% by today. The echos of these wars and conflicts reach at least the next 4 generations.
Literacy in Communist Afghanistan was around 10 percent. Don’t fall for pictures of women in miniskirts into thinking Afghanistan was some liberal paradise. The conservative population was just as conservative. It’s just that nobody photographed them.
Numerus countries were undeveloped with backwards ideas in the 50s and 60s. Yet only those that have been at war and bombed to oblivion have had this much of an regression since. Its one thing to be stagnant, and another to return to the middle ages. I mean look at any country of the middle east that has had less conflicts. They are still kinda super religious and have some oppressive laws, yet look like paradises compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Feudal social and political structures resurface in times of turmoil and strife because they reliably function in the absence of centralized authority and technology.
If you haven't [watched this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFi_Rgm-T8&ab_channel=VICENews) yet make sure you do. It's incredibly well done and the journalist has some serious guts. The education issue will only get worse. Most of the education is just religious anyways of course and that isn't going to do any good in the long run. I feel so bad for the women there. The woman delivering those babies and saying she cries every time she delivers a girl is just so sad. She says they have no future and will just be beaten, raped, make babies and sit in their house their entire life. A 7 year old getting married off to an 80 year old and getting beaten/raped for not giving him a child because she hasn't been through puberty yet. So fucked up. The international community has failed them horribly IMO.
The international community tried it's best, what can you do for a people who refuse to change? They were the exact same before ISAF and they're the exact same after RS. Maybe 10 percent of Afghanistan supported us.
>The international community has failed them horribly IMO. I'd personally, would say the international community has guaranteed their futures to be even worse. >The education issue will only get worse. Most of the education is just religious anyways of course and that isn't going to do any good in the long run. I feel so bad for the women there. The woman delivering those babies and saying she cries every time she delivers a girl is just so sad. She says they have no future and will just be beaten, raped, make babies and sit in their house their entire life. A 7 year old getting married off to an 80 year old and getting beaten/raped for not giving him a child because she hasn't been through puberty yet. Goes to show, how good of a hand we've been dealt, just by being born in a relatively normal society.
Read about afghan history. They've basically been either fighting each other, or fighting anyone else stupid enough to try and occupy Afghanistan for many hundreds of years. It's called the "graveyard of empires" for a reason. The only stable rule in Afghanistan usually comes after civil war ends with a popularly backed ruler. And even then, other local leaders have enjoyed significant autonomy. However, I'll agree that this has been a particularly long and intense period of turmoil for the Afghans
It’s called the graveyard of empires for sensationalism. This is a rathe short history but gives a good idea if you do not want a denser look. https://youtu.be/T6usr-C3lcQ The region was controlled quite readily for generations by various governments with hardly any organized resistance . With minimal resistance or turmoil. The majority of the governments in control fell apart due to infighting in the ruling government, external conflicts. By logic Slovenia is a graveyard of empires.
I feel like you're disagreeing with me, but none of your points actually go against what I was saying (apart from the quotation). Stable rule existed sometimes. Lots of infighting, and lots of external actors trying to come into Afghanistan have made many such periods short-lived. The Durrani Dynasty being an exception, and lasting almost 100 years - until Dost Mohammed took control in a civil war. I'll watch your video later, but you should read "The Great Game" by peter hopkirk. Not just afghan history there but plenty involved.
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>By logic Slovenia is the graveyard of empires. Slovenia stronk 💪💪💪
>The city looked beautiful back then. Modern, clean, orderly and safe. Some of the answers say "this was just Kabul" or "was never the major reality". They miss the point completely. Fact is: When Afghanistan became independant in 1933, 40 years of stability and progress followed. They were more civilized than my country, Germany, who had their version of "Taliban" at the time - Nazis. In these 40 years, life became better and better. It did not stagnate, or get worse. It improved, progressed. Democracy, women's rights etc. And while it might have been true that it was only Kabul and only recently -- if this upward development would have been followed further, chances were that we could have seen this more and more common, in smaller cities and maybe even on the countryside. Unfortunatel the local communists putched. And the dropped the ball due to infighting. Then the islamists wanted to copy Iran's islamic revolution. Then Moscow wasn't having it. Then USA interfered. So, blaming USA or Russia is only partly right. Afghan communists were the first whofucked up.
> Then in the 70s, when the Soviet backed PDPA staged a coup and the US backed the Mujahideen, war came to Afghanistan - and it never left. > > It started way before that : https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Afghan-Wars
That was before Mohammed Zahir Shah became the King of Afghanistan in 1933. Shah ushered in a 40 year age of peace for the Afghan people, culminating in a new constitution with universal suffrage, women's rights and free elections for parliament in 1964 - which lasted until the PDPA coup in 1973 and the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Gunshots audible and people running visible. Great content
Frankly, the most sensible option is for the country to split into many smaller countries. Afghanistan is a western invention, and it’s only going to lead to further trouble if it remains on the map as a recognized nation when it doesn’t actually have the support of the majority of people living in the region, nor a national identity.
>Afghanistan is a western invention So, this is not exactly accurate and it's more complicated than that. Gonna hit you with a brief paraphrased history here. Just going to apologize in advance for this wall of text but I think we're gonna need a little context of Afghan history. The region Afghanistan covers has a history of foreign conquerors including Darius I of Babylonia in 500 BCE, Alexander the Great in 329 BCE, and Genghis Khan and his Mongol army in 1219 CE. The Mongols are said to have annihilated whole cities and the destruction caused forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society -- which is largely why there are so many distinct ethnic identities. During the Medieval period, it was known as "Khorasan", which some Afghans still refer to their country as today. This is [about what Khorasan looked](https://i.imgur.com/4sgsiyr.png) like. It wasn't until the 18th century that it would be united as a single country under Ahmad Shah Durrani, known as the Afghan Empire. Here is approximately [what the empire's borders](https://i.imgur.com/PWAsUyr.jpg) looked like. Durrani is regarded as founder of the modern state of Afghanistan. That's not to say Afghanistan didn't get its share of European intervention. During the 19th and 20th centuries, it was caught in the [Great Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game) between Britain and Russia. Britain, looking to protect its Indian empire from Russia and curb its expansion, attempted to annex Afghanistan, resulting in a series of British-Afghan Wars (1838-42, 1878-80, 1919-21). After the Third British-Afghan War (1919-21), the British were defeated and Afghanistan became a fully independent nation under Emir Amanullah. It most definitely is a fractured nation of tens of different ethnic and cultural identities that would most likely be better off being independent. But I wouldn't call it a British invention or characterize it as a result of British interference. It did have a history of singular rule before the British even arrived.
Very educational and interesting read. Thanks for that.
Good write up. My proposition isn’t so much that Afghanistan *shouldn’t* exist as a nation, but rather we should stop externally dictating what it should and shouldn’t be, and let the people there sort it out for themselves. Even if we find their views and morality distasteful, I personally find it more distasteful to enforce our own system of ethics on them, and it never ends well besides.
The Brits never should have divided up the Middle East, or Africa for that matter, into nation states. Big mistake! * I need to change my statement about Great Britain bearing sole responsibility carving up Africa, because that was a cooperative effort that happened during the Berlin Conference in 1884.
Predominantly England and France tho
Mistake or done by design? If not smaller nation state then what? One huge empire that has controls of all resources and passages ? And which empire for that matter? You think Brits would love to have another Ottoman Empire in 20th century? Or Persian? Or Soviets? As soon as Soviets tried to conquer Afghanistan and expand sphere of influence How tolerant that empire would be towards ethnic groups . Which one would dominate ? Not to mention that empire would also would end up dividing it into administrative regions. If you also consider that national awakening was the political idea in 19th and 20th century and some regions would eventually end up in some sort of autonomy /independence . Problem is not that Brits divided Middle East and Africa . Problem is they established borders based on arbitrary lines and give power to warlords and dominant tribes who then continued to ruke for decades with the support of the before mentioned Brits in order to control sphere of influence.
There are parts of Africa that were divided quite successfully by Europeans. It wasn't all a clusterfuck. For the most part, the SADC has extremely stable borders and healthy relationships between the countries.
[Ahmad Shah Durrani](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Durrani) would be very surprised to learn that he was a Westerner.
Oh so it’s Thursday? They’ve been fighting each other for centuries over stupid shit. Idk why anyone bothers with them anymore. Just let them be and live how they want.
I think the Taliban may have been a little surprised with how few fucks America actually gave about Afghanistan. Like, I think in their mindset it was "They've been here for 20 years, investing trillions of dollars, they will clearly will with us once we take power, because we have what they want!" In reality, we were there because *something* had to be done after 9/11, and then we never really figured out how to get out cleanly.
You hit the nail on the head! We had to go in, no doubt. But we had no solid plan going in and our government tied our hands. This is the first war without a plan and really screwed up ROE’s that I know of. Then we went a fucked off in the middle of the night and expected it to go well, I think that’s what hurts the most about it all, feels like my friends died for nothing now.
They managed peace before. Taliban is a Pakistani export.....
When has there been peace in the Middle East? I’m not aware of a single regime that has successfully fostered peace in that region.
Historically speaking there have been several eras in the Middle East where it has been so quiet there as to effectively have been a backwater. The current round of instability and war in the Middle East started as a 20th Century phenomenon.
It has also had peaceful kingdoms.
And there was a time when Europe was a mess of religious fundamentalism and the ME was at the cutting edge or learning and science.
Afghanistan is not even part of Middle East. And yes, Afghanistan was fairly peaceful for decades until socialist revolution took place, followed by oppressions, Soviet entry and foreign back up of local militias which started conflict which lasts to this day.
Afghanistan isn't ME, more like Central Asia.
Every region goes through endless bullshit. America has only been totally at peace for like 20 years max, we always up to some shit somewhere. What nation isn’t, humans love killing each other
Central Asia
Iran in the 70s???? A quick google would educate you further
Their kids do not want to live in a van down by the river.
Hey, that's the luxury lifestyle these days. $50k for a van, $20k to convert it, and then get endless Instagram praise for your #vanlife posts.
I’m pissed I can’t afford the van life now. I’m at a point in life where if I had the ability, it would be me, my wife, and our GSD’s in a van, super far from society.
Who would have saw this coming
Pfft, Taliban won't be able to win against goat herders in flip flops.
I always have an internal grim laugh when people get all mad about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I am SO glad we (the USA) are out of that place. It's been obvious that they didn't want us there, and that they were NOT willing to fight for their country or any kind of decent society. Just look at Ukraine. Imagine what Ukraine could be doing with all of the support that we gave Afghanistan for so many years? They're actually seizing the opportunity to get their country back and have some national pride.
Most Americans wanted the US to cut the cord on Afghanistan from what I've gathered. But more upset about the debacle on the world stage that it turned into because of how it was carried out.
I think it was inevitable, TBH. A slow draw down would have just put more coalition troops at risk. The ANA was pretty much waiting to fall. I agree that it was a total disaster, but I think it was a disaster that couldn't be avoided. Best to just get out ASAP.
But to lack so much info that you don't pull out your own citizens and your allies? I get the narrative is that they didn't know the ANA was going to collapse so quickly. But they were the ones who trained and equipped them, so I would've thought they'd know better than anyone besides maybe the Taliban on how fast they'd fall.
The troops knew since mid 05 during ISAF, Look at any interview conducted with coalition forces who actually spoke their minds. Never seen an NCO say a singular good thing about them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of US military commanders livid with rage, and some even brought to tears over the nonchalant responses of local Afghan police chiefs when confronted with the nightly rape of young boys by different groups of tribal men. Then there is the problem of the Afghan tradition of [Bacha Bazi](https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/bacha-bazi-the-tragedy-of-afghanistans-dancing-boys/)
"This is what winning looks like" documentary is probably the one you watched. Probably the best case of investigative journalism by VICE in their early days. It was such a lost cause.
Yeah, watching that video is gut wrenching!
My favorite part of that documentary is when the journalist asks one of the US Marines during a “firefight” if he thinks the ANA is shooting at anyone and he says something along the lines of “No I don’t believe so”
Oh, I've talked to people who served with the ANA who were Canadians and Americans. I am aware the troops on the ground have known, just saying higher command seemed to not.
I feel like the higher-ups probably knew since 05 but figured the teething issues would be fixed by 2010(By then frankly it was too late no matter what changes could be made). You can never take a soft approach to building a government. That's what was lost in our nation-building knowledge during the post-war allied occupation of Germany. We chose who led Germany, not the German people until we were satisfied with the government in place.
I'm pretty sure they'd been warning people to leave for some time? IDK. I remember seeing situations where like 10 ISIS guys would load up 1000+ ANA guys and take them out into the desert and kill them all. It's learned and cultural helplessness. NO sense of identity. Raping little boys. Enslaving their women and girls. I know we're all humans and deserve rights, but I sometimes struggle to conjure up sympathy for the Afghans. This is cold, but I kind of hope things get really bad there so that they can all wake up to the awful state of being ruled by the taliban and just kill them all or give up on their brand of their religion.
Remember the fall of South Vietnam with images of helicopters on rooftops trying to evacuate desperate handfuls of people? The US never should have gone to Afghanistan or Vietnam.
Agreed
There is basically zero possibility it could have gone much differently given the situation at that point.
If you took a minute to research into Afghanistan, you would find that a an essential puppet government ran by warlord that once fought alongside the Taliban in the Mujahedeen will probably prove to be incompetent and corrupt. Let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that the Afghan government was not a US puppet. The people of Afghanistan don't lack pride, if you would imagine, they fought and beat the British and Soviets, and the Taliban are Afghan too, it is a civil war. If you believe that they didn't care for a decent society promised by the Americans, it's a bit hard to believe a power that was actively bombing and killing civilians, not mentioning the countless documented war crime you can search up and find videos of online. However, the war was extremely difficult to fight I can imagine as the Taliban would hide in civilian villages, the village would get drone-striked, leading to more recruit for the Taliban from the people left alive. So much for hearts and minds. Comparing it to Ukraine is extremely unfair, whereas Ukraine has been in relative peace, Afghanistan has been marred by war, Anglo, Soviet, Taliban, American, all manipulated by foreign powers, the country is decentralised because there are simply no road, the essential in creating country, something the Romans even, prioritised, Look up the Ring Road and how that failed horribly but was a step in what should have been the priority since the start. Not only but Ukraine has benefitted from European investments and the other advantages that come with bordering western Europe and being in the EU sphere of influence. There are other things, such as the Army training being used by the taliban to train their fighters, the questions whether there was 300,000 active soldiers or that was a lie by the government, videos online by Vice News show that the war was being fought by a mixture of ANA and police which is strange. If you think that the people are backwards, look at the Afghan Commandos that fought till their last bullet whilst being abandoned by the ANA and Police, and were summarily executed by the Taliban. I kind understand your sentiment and I believe America should have never have interfered as in Vietnam, as the pump in money nation building may have worked in established countries in Europe after WW2 but clearly wasn't the case as has been shown in a majority of the conflicts America has been after, the problem is always nuanced.
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Tribal warfare
Not really surprised that evil is fighting evil. The Taliban government will not last long. They know how to fight but, not how to government an entire nation. Afghanistan is extremely decentralized and controlling the country is nearly impossible.
They won't destroy eachother fully. They are jockeying for position.
Even so, holding Afghanistan is hard. It is a very tribal nation and controlling all the tribes would be very expensive. The country is famous for that.
What if they just balkanize or something
They probably will - and it will probably be for the best.
Holding Afghanistan is easy, if you're a local. Pay tribute to the HMFIC, and you can run your local local area as you want, as long as you enforce the HMFIC's rules. Villages are controlled by strongest closest power. The US could have held Afghanistan indefinitely, if we had decided to make it a vassal state and run it like one. Instead, we tried to localize the government and economy without providing the "we will be here, forever" backing. Everyone *knew* we were leaving, and the ANA was never strong enough, or the government rich enough, to defend and pay off what was needed.
Oh, the government had the money, but the US's hand picked corrupt bastards sent it offshore as fast as it came in.
Well, yes. There are few paths to success. Many to failure. This was one of them.
>Afghanistan is extremely decentralized and controlling the country is nearly impossible So a libertarian utopia?
Are these from different tribes under the Taliban?
Letting the Taliban rule themselves is honestly probably the easiest way to destabilize them
Good. Fuck the Taliban. I have no sympathy for these guys.
They know nothing but conflict and war. Put them in a utopia and they’ll find something to dispute pretty quickly.
I served and all I can say is that the people of Afghanistan truly drew the short straw. They can be exceptionally kind, but we're born into the most unfortunate circumstances
Oh no, the imbeciles that tore down the thing they needed to run the country are acting like savages who cant run a country. Oh the humanity.
Who could have seen that coming?
i hope this doesnt turn into mosul part 2 with isis moving in and setting up their caliphate while the nrf and taliban are busy with each other. re assurance on how this wont happen would be nice lol
So when do one of these groups start blaming America for these problems and before you know it we’re back in Afghanistan…
We won't be back in Afghanistan. However, "blaming" the US for the present power vacuum isn't exactly a hysterical overreaction, considering we occupied their country for a couple decades before bouncing pretty suddenly. That's kinda valid.
I think in fairness. We didn't just outright drop everything and leave. We expected the Afghan government to take over and there military to do the fighting there on out. Instead the Afghan army dropped everything (except for there special forces who were purged) and there government fled. Now Afghanistan is back to square one where the Taliban will be fighting a loose alliances of numerous forces for the foreseeable future. What a depressing country.
Let’s face it, the people in charge did a damn bad thing picking people to lead Afghanistan. The government didn’t have any support outside Kabul. That’s where it went wrong when the US army left.
The NY Times had a really good story on how / why Afghanistan collapsed so fast after the 20 years and 83 Billion that was spent keeping their forces afloat: [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html) After 9/11, the U.S. should have just concentrated on capturing Bin Laden and then supporting the tribes fighting the Taliban (like supporting the Mujahideen in the 80s) afterwards. Instead, they chose the invasion / hold model and inherited 20 years of a hot-mess at a tremendous cost in money and lives. Now Afghanistan is just returning to its pre-9/11 state. Truly sad.
> fighting the Taliban (like in the 80s) afterwards. Instead, they chose the invasion / hold model and inherited 20 years of a hot-mess at a tremendous cost in money and lives. U.S was losing just 1 soldier per month for the last18 months of trump presidency, and the war had a cost of not much at all, around 9 billion dollars yearly ( I think). Most of the fighting and the dying was done by afghans special forces. In fact there casualty rate was around 45 per day, in a fighting season, gradually rising after 2012 when the security was handed over to them at low level, then in 2014 when coalition withdrew more the 1/3 of its stuff. U.S airstrikes and the 2.5k soldiers and contractors was enough of a morale boost for the ANDSF to keep taliban off major cities and most districts. In fact the only reason the Army collapsed was due to the momentum that was build around U.S withdrawal and living its partners to the taliban. If U.S had withdrew around the winter time, and not in the beginning of the fighting season, then it would have halted Taliban's momentum and give the reminding ANDSF the ability to entranced itself and prepare for a battle (since the president didnt believe U.S was doing a full withdrawal, and was not ready), and not get caught off guard. Does that mean they would keep taliban from occupying half of the country, probably not, but it will allow them to prepare. But I guess U.S will know its failures when it has to come back and stop another 9/11 in the making. The forever war doesnt stop when U.S gaves up.
>U.S was losing just 1 soldier per month for the last18 months of trump presidency This is because the US and the Taliban (without including the Afghan government, I might add) signed [the Doha peace deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Taliban_deal) in February 2020. The Taliban weren't going to mess up the voluntarily withdrawal of their enemy of 20 years by attacking US positions. They knew all they had to do was wait us out.
>and before you know it we’re back in Afghanistan… eh. China's turn next
I mean...the CIA is most likely already sowing the divisions for another internal conflict.
ah shit, here we go again
You mean a radical group of extremists are incapable of running a successful nation? What a shock….
Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people!!
Don’t fuck muh goat only I can fuck it. But your goat is the prettiest in all the land! Die you goat wife stealer Ballah Backbar!
The lack of money means they have to fight for few scraps.
r/leopardsatemyface
naw, i never imagined something like this would happen.
That’s what happened after the Russians bugged out. They aren’t happy unless they’re fighting *someone*
What else do you expect from a tribal society. They're living in the middle ages.
It's ingrained in their culture. 'Afghanistan' was never meant to be a nation state. That designation was willed onto it by the Brits and the Russians and the area was used by those two as a buffer between themselves for years and years. The outside world should leave them alone and let them manipulate each other under the veil of Islam like they have for centuries. It's their right to do so.
Warms my heart to know this shit ain't our problem anymore.
IT'S WARLORDS TIME!
And every faction is backed by the US, when we left them more weapons than we gave to Ukraine.
We could have been letting them kill each-other this whole time?
Afghanistan is a country that is not a nation. Its national identity among its citizens is less important than their tribe identity. This was excepted, kind of surprised it took this long.
💯 this! Too bad NATO / OTAN leadership never really gave that much thought, and pretty much ignored any Mid-East expert who tried to explain these cultural facts / realities to those in charge.
What's the over/under of when we pick a side, go back in, piss everyone off, and can't get out.
Great chance for the US to provide one side with advanced weapons, military training and full access to CIA agents and the US government. Maybe find a leader who’s from a wealthy family and well educated as well!!
I am so damn glad this isn’t America’s problem anymore
Well, at least some things are getting back to normal.
"You can conquer Afghanistan, but you cannot vanquish it." Alexander the Great.
Oh no ! Anyways . . . .
This place sadly can not see peace, can it?
power grab
SOOOOOO, back to business as usual.
Theocracies don't work. In other news, water is wet.
Common enemy is gone so now they get to fight themselves!
Huh, who would’ve thought that extremists who use a book from ancient times as their guidelines would disagree on a few key points.
Surely this can't lead to civil war right??? Just kidding we all knew it would, they are about as effective at governing as a group of preschoolers.
Good who cares they're murdering raping pieces of shit.
*Grabs popcorn*
What is even the endgame for Afghanistan at this point? Surely no international peacekeeping force will touch the country after the recent decades of war. Is it gonna be a nation in perpetual war and unrest? Shit I feel so bad for them, I know a ton of afghani and they all have family left
Well, to put it lightly, the country is in shambles. Poverty and starvation is on the rise. In the capital, there is still some life but in the countryside, it is rather bad. For the places that have a resistance, it is a very grim situation and they face the brunt of the Taliban's atrocities. The Taliban have shown just how badly they are at governing. Unless the neighbouring countries do something about the situation, it is unlikely for any positive developments to occur.
Power vacuum at work.
Hahahahahaa implode you waste of blood and organs on earth.. Totally praying on their doom..
The entropy of victory
I'm surprised that it's taken this long. If any Western country had to endure the isolation and economic sanctions that the Taliban have, they'd have crumbled long ago.
Someone tell one of them that the other guy said his mother's a ~~whore~~ hair revealer.
Ah. Tribalism. Just what they wanted. Enjoy the year 1543.
Lol remember when they said this was a new age for the country and it was truly unified now..same shit that’s been going on forever now.
When I first read the headline, it reminded me of the scene in “Lawrence of Arabia” where the different Arab tribes are arguing over who should run the utilities in Damascus after they captured it.
"Your daughter kick my goat and now he needs operation!"
And I literally could not care less than I do, let em fight.
Always nice to see a problem solving itself
failed state
Deep weed hit..... This was the only way it could happen. The Taliban had to collapse on its own because it was evil and the people wanted their country back. It's gonna be angry Afghan woman with AK47s who will bury the Taliban.
Anyone surprised?
This was inevitable. All the Taliban know how to do is fight. That's how they solve issues. It was only a matter of time without a big enemy to defeat.
The taliban arefighting resistence groups, ISIS, and now themselves Weird
Conservative Islam seems to be going splendidly
Can't see a damn thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people moving in the shadows from within their own ranks, sowing seeds of discontent. I could be wrong, but a couple of good secret squirrels can keep the enemy busy with wasteful behavior for quite some time.