Afghanistan - 20 years on

Malevolence said:
They've had over a decade of training and have been equipped with some of the latest weaponry. There is not a single reason why they couldn't have held back this Taliban advance. The truth is they didn't even try.
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Well, they didn't necessarily have the support of their government, they were quite variable in terms of quality (see earlier video), they were heavily infiltrated by the Taliban already...
 
dowie said:
You're talking about withdrawal no?
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What would have been the point in a drawn out withdrawal? End result would have been the same. In hindsight they should have withdrawn the embassy as the same time, but they thought they could hold on. There is some partial blame there on how it was done.
 
Longbow said:
What would have been the point in a drawn out withdrawal? End result would have been the same. In hindsight they should have withdrawn the embassy as the same time, but they thought they could hold on. There is some partial blame there on how it was done.
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Its clearly been a failure of intel or capability assessment of the Afghan Army; I suspect intelligence estimates didn't bank on the Afghan Army barely firing a shot. They should have had all non-essential personnel down to tiny figures before now.
 
This sort of thing doesn't look too good at all:


Longbow said:
What would have been the point in a drawn out withdrawal?
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Attempting to avoid the current chaos, they were planning to withdraw over the course of the remainder of this month, that then got moved to withdraw by Tuesday and now they're having to rush in extra troops to deal with securing the airport etc..

Look at how Bagram was handled - they snuck out in the middle of the night without any liaison with the Afghans who then woke up to find civilians attempting to loot the place. That sort of pull the rug, see ya later approach doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Perhaps withdrawing citizens, Afghan interpreters and (at least non-essential) diplomatic staff would have been better achieved before withdrawing from Bagram.
 
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gettothechopper said:
What a disaster

All the wasted effort and opportunities for nothing

just terrible, Biden I just don't get it - Trump was an idiot and a wrecker - but you are supposed to make good choices
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Pointed out your mistake for you, hes never made any good choices.

China will swap infrastructure construction for strip mining the land, leave them too it, they really cant do any worse than the last 60 years of the wests interference.

At least it puts the second amendment question to bed, a well armed militia can topple a corrupt government, quite quickly in fact.
 
Trump agreed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, without the Afghan governments involvement in those talks

Biden extended it. He could have renaged on it, but then that would likely have lead to the Taliban attacking American troops again.
 
VincentHanna said:
Trump agreed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, without the Afghan governments involvement in those talks

Biden extended it. He could have renaged on it, but then that would likely have lead to the Taliban attacking American troops again.
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He was left with basically no good outcome. Either way, he was going to end up skewered by the press for Trump's stupid deal.
 
gettothechopper said:
What a disaster

All the wasted effort and opportunities for nothing

just terrible, Biden I just don't get it - Trump was an idiot and a wrecker - but you are supposed to make good choices
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I dont think there was any appetite for returning to Afghanistan in the US so not much he could do to stop what happened. Without committing to a large military presence for generations I'm not sure anyone could significantly change the region.
 
chrismscotland said:
Its clearly been a failure of intel or capability assessment of the Afghan Army; I suspect intelligence estimates didn't bank on the Afghan Army barely firing a shot. They should have had all non-essential personnel down to tiny figures before now.
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Nasher said:
The soldiers will have told the commanders and generals they are terrible, the generals will have told the politicians it's going great.
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That's the issue, everyone who served in Afghan at a "low rank level" has been saying the ANA/ANP isn't fit for purpose but passing that reality up the chain doesn't get officers promoted, so "the truth" becomes a casualty of war yet again because when promotion depends on telling your boss everything is awesome then that's what everyone will hear.

Personally I'd consider a name & shame public inquiry into the difference between the Intel gathered 1st hand by the "low ranks" vs the final reports submitted by the generals to the politicians to point out that lying for promotion is a scummy thing to do.
 
ianh said:
That's the issue, everyone who served in Afghan at a "low rank level" has been saying the ANA/ANP isn't fit for purpose but passing that reality up the chain doesn't get officers promoted, so "the truth" becomes a casualty of war yet again because when promotion depends on telling your boss everything is awesome then that's what everyone will hear.

Personally I'd consider a name & shame public inquiry into the difference between the Intel gathered 1st hand by the "low ranks" vs the final reports submitted by the generals to the politicians to point out that lying for promotion is a scummy thing to do.
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Speaking to friends who served there, they were always on heroin, if they even bothered to show up at all, same with the police force. They were all corrupt, lazy and incompetent, the only ones with any fight in them are the Taliban.
 
VincentHanna said:
Trump agreed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, without the Afghan governments involvement in those talks

Biden extended it. He could have renaged on it, but then that would likely have lead to the Taliban attacking American troops again.
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It was pretty clear that there would have been violence before now if Biden had reneged on the withdrawal deal; and I don't believe the American Public would have stood for remaining in Afghanistan any longer either; he really had no option.

The actual removal of diplomatic/civilian staff has been poorly done; although is anyone honestly going to tell me that Biden personally was over-seeing that? I'm pretty sure no-one is going to claim that Boris is personally overseeing the RAF airlift of UK staff?
 
ianh said:
Personally I'd consider a name & shame public inquiry into the difference between the Intel gathered 1st hand by the "low ranks" vs the final reports submitted by the generals to the politicians to point out that lying for promotion is a scummy thing to do.
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That would make for some very interesting reading. It'll never happen though.
 
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