That’s more than likely the vast majority of the problem. It’s not like fighting-age Afghans on the government side are these enlightened womens-lib types. They’re probably conservative, male-chauvinist, and probably generally ignorant.
The Afghan government backed by the US was probably the best deal they had going, not necessarily some sort of ideological crusade that they’re fighting for. And they’re not professional soldiers in the Western sense either, meaning that they’re not fighting because it’s their profession and because they’ve had intensive indoctrination in what that means, unlike most Western armies. Put another way, the US Army’s soldiers fight because they’re soldiers and part of the US Army, and at a remove,
because they’re Americans, or for freedom, or whatever else. The Afghan soldiers are more along the lines of mercenaries; they’re fighting because they’re being paid, not because they have this deep ideological commitment to the Afghan government, or because they believe in gender equality or whatever.
So when the US pulls out and the Afghan government is shown to be seriously weak, their soldiers likely just go back to their own tribal grouping, or even to the Taliban if that seems to be the best deal for them. It’s really no skin off their noses how that shakes out, unless the Taliban is summarily executing anyone associated with the Afghan government; that might put their backs to the wall and actually make them fight.
It’s definitely not a question of personal bravery; it’s been shown for centuries that the warriors of Afghanistan (whatever tribe they may be from) have plenty of that. It’s more about WHY they fight.
Alessan posted about the U.S. training Afghanis to fight the Taliban. Quicksilver replied that the U.S. did a good job training Afghanis to fight the Soviets. AK84 then points out that the Mujahideen are not the Taliban. So? Quicksilver did not assert the U.S. trained the Taliban.
It’s a fact completely irrelevant to Quicksilver’s remark, as he did not assert they are the same.
He basically said “Back then, the Afghanis fighting the Soviets were trained and equipped by the U.S. and did a successful job of repelling the invaders. Now, the Afghanis fighting the Taliban were trained and equipped by the U.S. but are not doing well fighting other Afghanis when losing the support.”
“Mujahideen are not the Taliban.” The Taliban are not the Viet Cong. The Soviets aren’t the United States. Iran and Iraq aren’t the same country even though though they only differ by one letter. Cuba isn’t a democracy. A banana isn’t an orange.
And AK84’s point, at least as I understood it, was that this thread is about the Taliban, not the Mujaheddin, and commentary on the Mujaheddin, their training by America or their history, is irrelevant to the modern case.
To which Quicksilver replied with a non sequitur cite talking about how the Mujaheddin were related to al-Qaeda, and not mentioning the Taliban at all - i.e. more irrelevancy. Which I then commented on. And then apparently Quicksilver’s pocketwatch burst a spring or something.
I think this really is the answer. Humans have spent millennia asking “Why we fight”. It often gets coupled with the idea of the difference between a soldier and a warrior. I think it’s fair to call the men of Afghanistan warriors and not soldiers. It doesn’t mean they’re not brave or that they won’t fight. But that they don’t answer the question of “Why I fight” in the same way that Cubsfan would and that’s it such a difference in view that the two groups might never understand the other.
Invaders and outside interests as the cause of problems in Afghanistan, including religious fundamentalism.
The great irony of the western project to bring democracy and social progress to Afghanistan is this: Afghans have a powerful progressive current of their own. It’s Islamic, not secular, but it is progressive.
In the six decades after the country gained independence from the British and before it was invaded by the Soviets, Afghanistan was governed by Afghans.
During that time, what did that Afghan government achieve? It liberated Afghan women from the previously obligatory burqa. It promulgated a constitution. It created a parliament with real legislative power. It set up elections. It built schools for girls nationwide. It pushed for coeducation. It opened women’s access to a college education at Kabul University and it opened public employment opportunities for them in professions such as medicine and law.
[quote=“MrDibble, post:85, topic:946110”]
And AK84 ’s point, at least as I understood it, was that this thread is about the Taliban, not the Mujaheddin, and commentary on the Mujaheddin, their training by America or their history, is irrelevant to the modern case. [/quote]
In a thread where the people of Afghanistan have been compared to the Russians, North Koreans, Iraqis under Saddam, the Vietnamese, Iraqis in Mosul, and even the Cambodians and Laosians, out is hardly off topic to compare the people of Afghanistan to other people of Afghanistan.
No, AK84’s post was the non-sequitor.
Alessan made a post that the U.S. is bad at training foreign forces. He didn’t say the Taliban or ANA or Afghanis. His comment is a generic blanket statement. Quicksilver replied with a case where the U.S. did a great job training a foreign force. It also had the advantage of being about Afghanis, and an ironic twist ending. He did not mention Taliban because the comment he replied to was not about the Taliban.
Then AK84 interjects his comment that had no bearing on the statements made.
The afghan army was trained to use close air support. That’s how our forces are trained. Air Superiority is essential and you need special pilots for close air support. Your hitting targets a 1000 yards from your men.
The afghan army depended on US Air support. Afghan planes and vehicles were maintained by US contractors. That all went away.
We trained the army the wrong way. We should have taught them to fight in small independent groups. Like the Taliban fights.
My opinion is based on several op Ed pieces from former officers that served in Afghanistan.
General Petraeus has mentioned the dependence on military contractors.
IMHO no one has the exact answer. There’s too many policy failures that occurred during a 20 year period. Military historians will be studying and analyzing Afghanistan for a long time.
General Ben Hodges reflections on his service and policy mistakes are very interesting.
So the US saw all that happening, and their reaction was that everything was going just great, and they didn’t need to change anything they were doing… for 10 years?
We probably trained them the right way, technically speaking. I mean, fighting on the ground is fighting on the ground, so I retract my comment that “they weren’t trained to fight a ground war” – they were. But the more accurate way of describing it is that we badly miscalculated how prepared they were to actually wage a ground war with the Taliban, which is probably attributable to a multitude of reasons. We took the training wheels off, and they immediately crashed the bike. Air support is particularly important for America’s military efforts because Americans don’t have the stomach for high casualty counts. The Afghan forces did a lot more dying than we did, but everyone has limits to how much they can endure. And when we pulled air support, and I think more importantly when we negotiated mano-a-mano with the Taliban and left the government out, that was probably the moment when they decided, this shit ain’t worth it anymore. Of course the rampant corruption didn’t help.
Incompetent, I give you …or perhaps it depends how you define competence.
The mid-ranking US officers were extremely competent at doing the best for their careers, by lying and sucking up to the generals, and signing off on whatever made them look good.
The US generals were extremely competent at funnelling shitloads of money to the contractors who were providing all that unnecessary and unhelpful hi-tech support to the ANA – and who will no doubt ensure that those generals have extremely lucrative sinecure positions at their companies when they retire from the military.
I take it you’ll have no part of watching the videos I linked because you’re not interested in any narrative other than the one you keep repeating. That’s a shame. But as you say, you’re just here sharing your humble opinion.
