Caporegime
That's what the Afghanistan people want.
Otherwise I'm pretty sure they would oppose the taliban and or have helped the US to stop the taliban...
Afghanistan - 20 years on
- Thread starter GreatAuk
- Start date
That's what the Afghanistan people want.
Otherwise I'm pretty sure they would oppose the taliban and or have helped the US to stop the taliban...
They did.
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
- Posts
- 3,681
If you're a poor farmer, how are you going to oppose half a dozen experienced guerilla fighters who turn up at your front door? You'd just keep your head down and hope they move on, quickly.
What your average afghan wants is irrelevant.
Caporegime
The Afghanistan people have opposed the US and British help for years and worked hand in hand with the taliban at virtually every opportunity or worked against the US with hostility.
Put simply a taliban which is made up for between 50,000 -75,000 members cannot possibly stand up to an entire country, their army and the US/UK forces.
Unless they are receiving lots of help from the local population.
Caporegime
The civilians knew who they were and did little/nothing to stop them.
Soldato
They didn't run off, they just put their rifles in the corner, trimmed their beards then went back to being Jamal the local goat farmer.
Associate
Yep, Afghans want Taliban. Not our problem at all. Its their problem.
Soldato
Like one man said the courts there are corrupt and well done for hanging child kidnappers they deserve that.
Never a truer woed said. I think most of the rural population supports them, I've been hearing the reason a lot of ana are deserting or not putting up a fight is because a lot of them haven't been paid for months...
Easy to say when you, and your family, aren't at risk from repercussions from an armed group with extremist tendencies.
Even in advanced Western countries you rarely see the population use their numbers advantage to improve things - there just isn't that level of organisation unless someone steps up as a leader and unites a significant number of the population towards one cause.
Caporegime
You do, it's called revolution.
It's happened in virtually every developed country, even against better armed forces/an army etc.
They had the best chance they will ever get, UK/US troops on the ground, air cover, local army, police backing.
Soldato
The real question USA and its allies should ask is what happened to the millions and millions given to the Afghan Army.
Wonder whose bank accounts that money has ended up in....
Corruption at the top of the regime, they never stood a chance against the Taliban
Wonder whose bank accounts that money has ended up in....
Corruption at the top of the regime, they never stood a chance against the Taliban
Soldato
Ghost soldiers. The ANA contains thousands of them. They exist on paper so they can get paid and receive the weaponry, but they don't actually exist and all the free gibs are funnelled to the corrupt officers and politicians. Recently read somewhere that the quoted 350k personal of the ANA is more than likely to only be half that number when ghost soldiers aren't counted. I reckon half is pushing it though, personally I'd say it's about a quarter.
You have almost the opposite situation to a revolution though here when it comes to the Taliban. The local army and police haven't exactly proved themselves very capable when it comes to protecting people especially those spread out in the less densely populated parts.
What you are talking about is completely unrealistic for the situation much of the average population of Afghanistan are in.
Over 300,000 trained, standing size currently is around 180K but estimated only around 70K experienced, combat ready, actually existing, forces. Of that only 20-30K are probably an actual effective fighting force when faced with the Taliban.
The Taliban now effectively have control of most of the important provincial areas with a lot of smaller towns and cities the local forces and government just running leaving masses of equipment behind...
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Don
So, the main result of our 20 years in Afghanistan is that the Taliban who were previously armed with Soviet-era AKMs, AK74s, Dragunovs, PKMs, and DShKs, are now armed with M4s, M16s, M249s, HK417s, and M2s.
Great result.
Great result.
Didn't the ira etc stand up to the full might of the UK and roi finally getting their way?
Some of it manufactured in the US, but it should be stated that it belonged to, and was stolen from the Afghan National Army. That's all hand-me-down equipment, including the M16A2s which the US military no longer use for combat.