Afghanistan - 20 years on

mrk said:
trump started the withdrawal, he said so himself:


But either way, this outcome was going to happen sooner or later.
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Trump may have started it and may be crowing that Biden couldn't stop it, but that's just not true. Biden could have run the withdrawal very differently if he wanted, or chosen an alternative path.

The Doha deal was rubbish and gave the Taliban legitimacy it shouldn't have had, and in true US foreign policy tradition ignored the actual government of the people it concerned. However, even considering the deal I think it could well be argued that the Taliban haven't really stuck to it and therefore US shouldn't necessarily have been bound by the terms.

Even if the government was always going to fall to the Taliban (which I'm not sure is actually the case had a different path been taken), the withdrawal could have been managed in a much more organised way which would have allowed all those eligible the chance to leave the country.
 
B&W said:
Check out Suhail Shaheen Twitter account, official spokesman of Taliban.

A Shia march was held in Kabul today, it was allowed none were harmed. Girls also were pictured going to school, can't find it now but this goes with what the Taliban were saying.

The country is sick of war, most Talibans are pretty young. a lot of people across the Islamic world have congratulated them, it's there time to proove themselves better then they were before. Would be the wise thing to do.
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As nice as it would be if the current Taliban have changed their ways, it seems more likely that this is just a front for social media. What we've heard about recent activities in areas they already controlled seems to indicate they haven't really changed that much. And if they were as progressive as they make out then why pursue a bloody military campaign for years rather than try peaceful political activism?

Time will tell I suppose
 
cheesyboy said:
I genuinely don't believe there would have been a peaceful exit strategy for the Taliban when it comes to dealing with the US war machine. Can you envisage it?

Not that I'm suggesting they were searching for one, through.
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They could just have stopped killing people at some point in the past 20 years?

Maybe going back to 2001 is they've stopped violence immediately it would have just meant that the US never left and never permitted people with fundamentalist religious beliefs into government, but I think after a while with political pressure they would have had to. Mass demonstrations every week would force even the US to rethink things after a while even if only to avoid press criticism at home.

Certainly since the 2020 agreement they showed no signs of letting up on attacks against government forces, even when the US was already committed to leaving. If there was any time they could have pushed for political influence peacefully, that was surely it, but they carried on killing.
 
There were reports of widespread 'deals' and bribery of local officials, so it may well have seemed like there was a big organised plot to those seeing it play out in person.
Sankari said:
Excellent Twitter thread here, posted by the Central Bank Governor of Afghanistan, explaining the fall of the government from his perspective as a first hand observer.
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I did think it was an interesting thread, and hope there will be more stories like that from different people to help flesh out what happened. However, part of that particular story doesn't make much sense to me: he "somehow" got pushed onto a military plane by his colleagues without any prior arrangement? It sounds like the military are being pretty tight about who gets on their planes, but he 'somehow' just gets on? Doesn't feel like he's telling the truth about that aspect.
 
Good to hear from someone who was actually embedded with troops in the end stage of the war. Hope we get more reports from journos who experienced what happened first hand (soldiers too, but then they have a vested interest to present the story in a particular way whereas journos should at least in theory be more impartial).

I'm trying hard not to get too annoyed by the 'soldiers were a well trained and equipped force that should have seen off the Taliban but they all ran away' comments many are making against news stories and on twitter etc. After all Joe Biden basically said that was the case so it's not a fringe opinion. I can only imagine what the relatives of the tens of thousands of dead Afghan army & police who died fighting over the past decades would think if they heard that.

Obviously I wasn't there but certainly sounds from the many sources available so far that it is a hugely crass and unfair generalisation to say the soldiers just ran away. They were put in impossible positions, given every reason not to fight (lack of pay, supplies, food), let down by leaders, and in some cases even ordered to surrender or abandon their equipment and run. And all this happening in the context of a state that has been basically set up to fail by its foreign architects, then not just abandoned but actively undermined by those same architects.

Maybe the soldiers were a bit useless at times as many people have also reported, and their leaders certainly let them down (would argue the leaders were also in very difficult positions post Feb 2020 and in the latter stages of US withdrawal), but just writing them off as cowards doesn't feel right to me.
 
Moley said:
My understanding is the Taliban gave quarter to and sent home those who lay down their arms without resistance and when those who fought against them ran out of ammo they were mercilessly slaughtered. The Taliban made it abundantly clear the soldiers had a choice and without the support from above they had no reason to fight.
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Indeed, I've read articles mentioning those sort of stark offers too. Read this today which talks a little a bit about the political situation which led to some of the problems the army ended up facing, with troops spread out in vulnerable isolated outposts unable to be resupplied: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/afghanistan-army-collapse-taliban-11628958253
Edit - think there's a 1 article limit without signing up, so can't go back to read it again now grr
 
Powerful speech from Tom Tugendhat today.


Angilion said:
The ending strikes me as being somewhat similar to the French or even the British soldiers in France in 1940. Not the same, but somewhat similar. There was a lot more corruption (e.g. the ghost soldiers) and divided loyalties in Afghanistan and a fair few of the ANA did just run away, but the fight was hopeless in both cases and the Taliban are a lot worse than the regular German military in 1940. The Taliban are more like the Dirlewanger brigade was. A unit so brutal that SS members made complaints about them being excessively brutal and did so often enough for senior SS officers to raise those complaints formally. People to run away from.
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Yes, guess that's another aspect to this, that the Taliban are a seriously frightening enemy that the soldiers had good reason to believe would show them absolutely no mercy having heard stories about what happens to those they capture. Fighting against the odds against an enemy like that when already profoundly demoralised and unsupported and retreat / running away is presented as an option would be a tough sell to most people.

I was wondering if there was any comparison to be made to Dunkirk too the other day... Think there are probably enough differences that any possible comparison would be very vague, but interesting to think about. We don't criticise that army for retreating when outmaneuvered and facing a battle they couldn't win. Yes it was perhaps a more ordered retreat, but would it have been if they'd faced similar circumstances? Who knows...
 
The way the rhetoric of Boris & chums is I'm kind of expecting the Taliban to get pretty good treatment from us. Official recognition not too far away perhaps. Can't help thinking Nick Carter was put up to that interview by his boss to try and start softening the public up for the change in tack.
chrismscotland said:
Reports that UK Forces are worried the US could just pull out of Kabul:

Britain fears US forces may pull out of Kabul airport within days | Afghanistan | The Guardian

There's also been some reports that the US and UK are barely speaking on the ground with the US annoyed that UK troops are still going in and out of Kabul to collect people for repatriation flights.
Seems like it could be quite tense over there between the "allies"
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Wouldn't even be that surprised if the US pulled a Bagram on us and just left the airport one night, anything seems possible at this point.

Biden would stay on holiday without even bothering to make a statement but his press secretary would let us know that the US can't be looking after us for ever now can they so of course it's up to the UK to sort its own people out. Raab would also be back on holiday, Nick Carter would go on the news and tell us that really our troops at the airport were the nasty ones as they were inherently threatening the doublegood Taliban peace force. Next day they all get arrested for trespassing by the Taliban, Boris makes a speech about how the Taliban are all about justice and freedom now, so will everyone please move on. The end.
 
Agree it seems sensible to invest in and partner with Afghanistan from China's pov. Builds their influence in the region, allows Afghan resources to be exploited, improves their security and further surrounds rival India with their own allies.
 
Sankari said:
True. England just invaded Ireland and started a military occupation that's lasted nearly 1,000 years so far, causing incalculable damage in the process and leaving the north of the country so completely ****** up that the occasional IRA kneecapping is now regarded as light entertainment.
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Not in the troubles 'England' (the UK) didn't. Unless you think that not immediately handing NI over to the Republic as soon as the first bomb went off counts as a military occupation... Seems like a weird way to define a military occupation. Unless you count every single bit of territory which ever changed hands due to military force as a 'military occupation', which would be somewhere around 100% of the Earth's surface.
 
OspreyO said:
The British army moved into NI in 1969. Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) formed in 1969. Without making any judgement on either, when you have the army on the streets, and fortified bases, armored cars etc. Its not exactly a love parade.
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NI was already part of the UK though, and the army was sent in as violence and civil disorder was already starting to become a problem. The IRA might not have been happy about it, but it's a bit of a tough situation for any state to find itself in. Given that the Unionist party had been doing pretty well at NI elections it seems a bit presumptuous to imply that rather than trying to bring order to the region the UK should have just made it independent.

Maybe deploying the army wasn't a good choice in hindsight (or maybe it was, who knows how things would have turned out had a different course been taken), but an 'invasion' and 'military occupation' implies that the place being occupied isn't part of that military's own country, or that some large majority of the population don't feel that the military is an arm of the state they want to live in.
 
OspreyO said:
NI Population 1971 Catholics 93.87% What kicked it off was Civil rights protests.
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It wasn't just protests was it though - tensions were already pretty high.

More importantly though, where on earth are you getting your numbers from? Catholics were around a third of the population in 1971, and only approaching 50% today!
https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/ni/religion.htm#1a

This is pretty off topic really, so I think I'll just leave it by saying I don't think the British army deploying in NI in 1969 counts as an invasion and military occupation, regardless of what ludicrous numbers you conjure up. If you disagree fine, but I don't think this is really going anywhere.
 
As it's been in the news recently, a little update on where the new reformed and modernised Taliban are up to:
www.bbc.com

Afghanistan: Women’s faces become latest Taliban restriction after face veil rule

“They are always after women” rather than tackling Afghanistan’s many problems, one activist told the BBC.
www.bbc.com
Women to wear Burkas in public, and if caught their male 'guardian' will be the one 'visited by officials', fined, or imprisoned.

Sits alongside most girls no longer getting a secondary education, most women not being allowed to work outside education or healthcare, and being required to be accompanied by a man on any long distance journey.

Meanwhile, our government is really not making life easy for people in that worked alongside the government and Western forces and are at risk of execution or 'disappearance', despite it being acknowledged that they are at risk:

Although I suppose it it worth noting that the Taliban aren't completely cut off from the outside world, and do allow some foreign journalists to report, and some NGOs are doing things like running training courses aimed at civilising some of the fighters-turned-police just a little bit:
www.theguardian.com

‘I am sure they will change’: Taliban swap guns for pens to learn about human rights

Young men who have spent most of their lives in combat are learning how to behave with civilians as the Taliban transitions from fighting to governing
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

All against a backdrop of widespread poverty and hunger.
www.reuters.com

Outlook for Afghan economy 'dire' as household incomes shrink - World Bank

The outlook for Afghanistan's economy is dire with per capita income having fallen by over a third in the last four months of 2021 after the Islamist Taliban seized power and foreign forces withdrew, the World Bank said on Wednesday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
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