# Afghanistan Today **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 13, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624 "2021-08-13T18:38:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/423 "2021-08-24T17:56:55Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > And all that money went to corrupt Afghan senior commanders. where do you foresee the money coming from that keeps the taliban in power. China? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/424 "2021-08-24T18:08:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > where do you foresee the money coming from that keeps the taliban in power. Everyone that uses heroin. Afghanistan decades ago displaced the Golden Triangle as the number one exporter of opium in the world and the Taliban taxes most of that. But yeah, China is utterly amoral in their business dealings and likely move into the business vacuum. Unless an issue arises with Afghan-sponsored Islamic agitation in Chinese central Asia, which I rather doubt. The Taliban have always been fairly insular and xenophobic. They never exported revolution themselves, they just sheltered those who did back in the day. But Afghanistan is and will remain dirt poor. The Taliban are not going to need many resources to hold power, because nobody in Afghanistan holds many resources. They just need to keep a certain percentage of the tribal leaders happy and most of the rest cowed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/425 "2021-08-24T18:58:38Z")
This article suggests there’s some good news: > **[U.S. evacuates 48,000 from Afghanistan as Taliban calls Aug. 31 withdrawal...](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/23/us-evacuates-37000-from-afghanistan-as-taliban-calls-august-31-withdrawal-deadline-red-line.html)** > > President Joe Biden has previously said that he may consider extending the departure date past Aug. 31 but has yet to do so. That’s a lot of evacuees, but it’s unclear how many are Americans, how many are Afghanis, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/426 "2021-08-24T19:15:23Z")
From what it sounds like a lot were probably Afghan visa holders and maybe foreign nationals. They actually ended up getting 21000 out yesterday–the article you quoted was taken mid-day yesterday and isn’t complete day numbers. We’ve moved a total of around 58000 out now. Of the original 15000 Americans who were in country I haven’t seen a clear number of how many have been evacuated, but I would guess a large % of them. Something to keep in mind is some of those people may have left outside the evacuation channel and just never notified the government. It’s also unclear what all of the ones who were in country were doing, and how many plan on leaving. Shockingly–not all probably plan to leave. There are likely at least some dual-nationality U.S./Afghan, some of whom may make a deliberate choice to stay in Afghanistan because of familial ties. It’s not inconceivable some number of Americans have some sort of other business or etc interests in country and may choose to stay. That seems crazy, but crazier things have happened. The popular idea is that in a situation like this there’s just going to be some big massacre of all the Americans, but the truth gets more complicated. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/427 "2021-08-24T22:49:56Z")
It’s 100% due to the fact that successful foreign occupation has a very low batting average in Afghanistan and we didn’t come to that realization soon enough. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/428 "2021-08-25T03:10:03Z")
[640 people on a C-17](https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2021/08/18/afghanistan-audio-c17-plane-load-count-copp-cpt-sot-vpx.cnn). Not a safe way to carry people but they basically overtook the plane and the crew wasn’t left with much choice. While this isn’t a weight capacity issue it was dangerous to carry them loose loaded. If they made a steep climb it could have caused them to fall to the back of the plane and cause a weight and balance issue. Normally you’d [center-load seat pallets](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aarcorp.com%2Fseat-pallet-system-463l-108-wide-15-passenger%2F&psig=AOvVaw1LVMlhZTjtQ8WMVXRp8hp6&ust=1629946656401000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAcQjRxqFwoTCMDUmM6Wy_ICFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE) and use the side seats for a load of 134 people. In a pinch you can load them and strap them down [“seat belt style”](https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/08/2001874986/-1/-1/0/180202-F-QN515-0031A.JPG). This was a cattle car. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/429 "2021-08-25T03:57:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > 640 people on a C-17 Your cite says 800 was an overestimation, but doesn’t provide a better number. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/430 "2021-08-25T05:13:29Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > Your cite says 800 was an overestimation, but doesn’t provide a better number. Either way, it still doesn’t brake the world record of [1,088](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon#World_record) people on one plane, from 1991. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/431 "2021-08-25T05:24:06Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I was a little confused, too. A woman I know married an Afghan man years ago, and she was told “afghans are blankets. Afghanis are people.” So, I guess now it’s both? No. Afghan is an alternate name for a Pashtun/Pashtun. Which as you can seen may make people of Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnicity unhappy. Afghani is a perfectly acceptable term in local language of “citizen of Afghanistan”. If someone says says “Afghan, not Afghani”, they are likely Pashtun. The reverse, non Pashtun. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/432 "2021-08-25T05:28:31Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And for that matter, to the people in the 1990s security apparatus who were so giddy at the fall of the Soviets and their clients, that they decided to not care about what filled the power vaccuum. The British, for not annexing Kabul ans Kandahar when the could have. The Afghans, for losing their richest provinces to the Sikhs. ……the Mughals and the Persians for 200 years of fighting over Afghanistan with no settlement. The Mongols for turning it into barren moonscape. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/433 "2021-08-25T05:40:58Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > but the Doha Agreement is probably the biggest proximate cause for the last year or so of what’s gone down in Afghanistan. There’s accounts of the Taliban bribing local outposts to surrender and lay down their weapons in exchange for promises and cash pay outs going back to the mid 2010s, but all the intelligence analysis being reported on in the last 14 days says that the pace of this accelerated dramatically basically right when Doha was signed, and started to affect district and provincial level military and political leaders. The Doha Agreement was broadly seen as a confirmation that the United States did not support the “puppet” regime, that plus the innate corruption and ineffectiveness of the puppet regime made it very easy for the Taliban to start flipping people. Great respect to you, but this is horseshit. THe Geneva accords of 1988 which ended the Soviet occupation didn’t cause the Afghan communist regime to fall, they hung on until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The issue was that the ANA non existent. Sure it had many brave men (and some women) but as an institution the military was less an armed forces than just a bunch of people with guns and the same uniform. The US could have built them up. But to somehow thing that an ANA which had turbo prop planes and modified fire fighting Helos as its frontline combat system could have held off the Taliban is laughable ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/434 "2021-08-25T12:46:00Z")
I used the term “proximate cause”, you should probably investigate what that means. You’re talking about longer term cause/effect, and on that count aren’t really in disagreement with me. I’ve already posted previously about how similar things went down over the several years it took for the communist government of Afghanistan to collapse after the Soviet pullout. For example in this post here: > [@Trump calls for Biden to "Resign in Disgrace"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-calls-for-biden-to-resign-in-disgrace/948754/111): > > I’ve read a number of assessments like this–and while I think they are spot on with failures in military strategy over the last 20 years, they don’t explain the rapid collapse. The rapid collapse was brokered the way deals are often brokered in Afghanistan–tribal leaders who often have family members on both sides of any conflict in Afghanistan, broker meetings, deals get cut. Most of the provinces fell with minimal or sometimes zero bullets being fired. I read an article from a former journal… ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/435 "2021-08-25T18:08:57Z")
This article is well worth reading. Was there a better way of withdrawing from Afghanistan? > **[A Better Afghan Policy (Published 2021)](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/briefing/afghanistan-policy-biden.html)** > > What would it have been? TL;DR: Yes, Biden should have had contingency plans for dealing with a sudden collapse of the Afghan government. But even so, withdrawal was always going to be messy. You can’t “quietly” evacuate your allies. And once local friends and foes know that you’re leaving, it sets off many other processes over which you have little control. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/436 "2021-08-25T18:34:48Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > No. Afghan is an alternate name for a Pashtun/Pashtun. Which as you can seen may make people of Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnicity unhappy. Afghani is a perfectly acceptable term in local language of “citizen of Afghanistan”. > If someone says says “Afghan, not Afghani”, they are likely Pashtun. The reverse, non Pashtun. Thank you! This is great information. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/437 "2021-08-26T08:16:59Z")
Well you cannot find a hotel room or B&B space in Islamabad and Peshawar. People have literally had phone calls offering them cash to take on house guests. August is holiday season normally, people have usually decamped overseas or to the north. Though Covid put a dampener on that last two years, it’s still surreal to see the place so crowded this time of year. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/438 "2021-08-26T08:37:19Z")
How are they getting there? Are they driving? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/439 "2021-08-26T09:26:21Z")
Flying from Kabul to Islamabad or driving across Torkham border crossing to Peshawar. At least it’s controlled this time, unlike previously…for now. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/440 "2021-08-26T10:06:11Z")
I’m beginning to wonder if a surprise counterattack is being looked into? Seize Bagram Airfield and at least take control of Kabul. Then finish the evacuation and get out. It would cost lives. Biden crossed that bridge with his poor decisions. The question is who dies? The elderly, women and kids or trained soldiers that can defend themselves? There’s California school kids and their parents stuck over there. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/two-dozen-california-students-are-stuck-in-afghanistan-as-the-august-31-deadline-to-evacuate-approaches/ar-AANJwmI](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/two-dozen-california-students-are-stuck-in-afghanistan-as-the-august-31-deadline-to-evacuate-approaches/ar-AANJwmI) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/441 "2021-08-26T10:36:35Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Correct on all accounts - I guess what I meant was that there will be more involvement/engagement, but ‘influence’ was probably not the best choice of words. There’s the potential for national security risks for all three countries involved. Unlike the US, I doubt Russia and China would try their hand at nation-building; they’d be more inclined to go full-on Ghengis Khan if they thought it would suit their interests. Russia tried that already in the 80s. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624/442 "2021-08-26T10:48:47Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m beginning to wonder if a surprise counterattack is being looked into? Seize Bagram Airfield and at least take control of Kabul. Then finish the evacuation and get out. Turning off the lights out as you slip out the back is generally a pretty good sign you’re not returning. > **[US left Afghan airfield at night, didn't tell new commander](https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghanistan-airfield-us-troops-f3614828364f567593251aaaa167e623)** > > Afghan military officials say the U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by slipping away in the night, without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander. > [@aceplace57](#): > > There’s California school kids and their parents stuck over there. > [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/two-dozen-california-students-are-stuck-in-afghanistan-as-the-august-31-deadline-to-evacuate-approaches/ar-AANJwmI) What, like on a field trip? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghanistan-today/948624.md?page=23)