Afghanistan - 20 years on

Yes its an oversimplification to say the Mujahedeen and the Taliban are the same
The two groups are not even single groups - hence the civil war after the USSR pulled out

Lots of Afghan War books being recommended :D

also read

The Good War
Unwinnable
A Million Bullets (Early Herrick / Platoon Houses era)
The Operators (Petraeus era)
Charlie Wilsons War (Operation Cyclone)

and as said before

Afgantsy (Russian perspective)
Little America (interesting for pre-russian Helmand era)
The Places in between (view of Afghan life in 2001)

would like to read "Return of the king" at some point for the older history
On "the looming tower" at the moment
 
Afghanistan is pretty much the go to place when you want to steadily bankrupt/collapse a nation, ie. Soviet Union and now the USA is massively in debt and decline following being bogged down there for two decades. I'd be fascinated to see how much both sides have spent since it began, it's more like a war of attrition than anything winnable and the western nations were foolish to go there. We could stay there another 100 years and nothing would change apart from our national debt and resulting economic conditions.
 
The taliban didn't disappear after being beaten back and defeated, because the country is pro taliban.
If they weren't then the population would have be able to overthrown the regime. Instead the regime is actively recruiting.
If your joining the taliban your the problem you created, because you wanted to.

Albeit maybe because they felt it was in retaliation to a awful US invasion, but either way its not gona end nicely for anyone.
 
Terrible, a guy i was in school with went out there after joining the Army. He was on guard duty somewhere in the country and some kid walked upto the soldiers on guard.

They started laughing because this young lad looked like he had wet himself.

He pulled a gun out and shot him dead wher he stood. They sent a child soldier which says a lot about them.

Also heard soldiers saying stories about tactics of bombs strapped to dogs, most of the soldiers i know had terrible mental health problems.
 
Roar87 said:
The West isn't bankrupt though, what are you talking about?
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Bankrupted financially? Of course not.

However, as authoritarian populism edges closer to power to protect the increasingly obvious oligarchy beneath the thin veneer of liberal democracy, I can say quite fairly that we are bankrupted as a society. Al Qaeda, regardless of whether it was just a conspiratorial front or genuine movement... has surely played a major role in our fracturing.
 
Tuppy_Glossop said:
The USA encouraged cotton growing in Helmand in 2012 but it coincided with a global price slump so they went back to poppies with a higher value. There is currently a push to provide the knowledge, skills, and equipment to make fruit and veg a viable alternative.
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but it coincided with a global price slump
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It was also over a decade after they invaded


There is currently a push to provide the knowledge, skills, and equipment to make fruit and veg a viable alternative.
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20 years after the invasion...
 
Malevolence said:
Not really. The Western forces had to fight with one hand tied behind their backs by the red tape of the Geneva Convention and other such human rights treaties. The Chinese don't give a **** about any of that rubbish, they'll kerb stomp the Taliban, and any civilians, if they start to cause any serious problems for them.
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My thoughts exactly.. They will not mess about trying to win hearts and minds they will just "re-educate" everyone weather thats in a concentration camp or with a bullet to the head
 
GreyHam said:
Sad state of affairs. A friend of mine did 2 tours in Afghanistan and lost a lot of friends over there. Really does seem like it was for no tangible benefit.
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I'm sure a lot of wealthy people got even wealthier, and the Taliban could not have wished for a better advert for their cause..
 
They had a former SAS commander I think on the news last night was asked what he would have done/should have been done different.

Make more infrastructure,help the people not just going out looking to engage the Taliban with force.

So obvious that was the way to sway the population to resist the Taliban and baffling how 20 years and the politicians never twigged onto this concept, I do wonder what planet they all live on.
However I can see China actually doing this!

Complete failure and I feel for all those people and families lives who have been ruined for bugger all at the end of the day.
 
alchal said:
Complete failure and I feel for all those people and families lives who have been ruined for bugger all at the end of the day.
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That's the key really. How many lives have been lost since the invasion in 2001? How many soldiers killed and maimed, how many civilians caught in a crossfire?

And for what? If you were the parent of a soldier that died you would want to think your son/daughter wasn't killed for nothing, yet when you see the Taliban sweeping back across the country in literally weeks after a 20 year occupation it must be so disheartening.
 
alchal said:
They had a former SAS commander I think on the news last night was asked what he would have done/should have been done different.

Make more infrastructure,help the people not just going out looking to engage the Taliban with force.

So obvious that was the way to sway the population to resist the Taliban and baffling how 20 years and the politicians never twigged onto this concept, I do wonder what planet they all live on.
However I can see China actually doing this!

Complete failure and I feel for all those people and families lives who have been ruined for bugger all at the end of the day.
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Exactly the same mistakes made in Iraq. The big push when they'd defeated Saddam should have been to reinstate all the utilities, build hospitals, infrastructure, create jobs, not sack the army and police but get them working with the allies. The usual arrogance that we've won it so we'll do as we please and they'll love us for it. Then they wondered why all those men with training and arms they'd kept from the army were easy to recruit when they'd been left jobless and cast aside. That plus the public who lacked water, gas, electric from utilities damaged in the campaign and most importantly jobs. It was a recruiters dream for AQ in Iraq.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Exactly the same mistakes made in Iraq. The big push when they'd defeated Saddam should have been to reinstate all the utilities, build hospitals, infrastructure, create jobs, not sack the army and police but get them working with the allies. The usual arrogance that we've won it so we'll do as we please and they'll love us for it. Then they wondered why all those men with training and arms they'd kept from the army were easy to recruit when they'd been left jobless and cast aside. That plus the public who lacked water, gas, electric from utilities damaged in the campaign and most importantly jobs. It was a recruiters dream for AQ in Iraq.
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But that's what they were trying to do. I did work in this country on water pumping systems for Iraq for example. The problem was that the insurgents kept trying to kill the contractors carrying out the work or destroying the new infrastructure!
 
Dis86 said:
But that's what they were trying to do. I did work in this country on water pumping systems for Iraq for example. The problem was that the insurgents kept trying to kill the contractors carrying out the work or destroying the new infrastructure!
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Was it their first priority other than security? Plus disbanding the armed services etc put 10s if not 100s of thousands of men out of work.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Was it their first priority other than security? Plus disbanding the armed services etc put 10s if not 100s of thousands of men out of work.
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I can't honestly say. However given what happened they then had to focus on security. The trouble is that you can't keep the armed forces of a country that you're occupying - it's just a ready made insurgency with access to military stockpiles. Whether they disbanded it properly and secured those stockpiles though is a different matter.
 
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