It’s completely different. The troops in Germany are there to defend against Russians, not to suppress the native Germans. The troops in South Korea are there to defend against North Koreans, not to suppress the native South Koreans. The Afghani people WANT the Taliban. I don’t understand why they want the Taliban, but it’s clear that they do.
Acquiescing to an outcome is not the same as wanting it. And keep in mind what I and others have said about the reality of how local conditions may vary relative to Kabul. People already under the foot of a chieftain who could go either way will continue to remain under foot and not see much point in dying over who gets to occupy Kabul, whether or not they agree more with one side or the other. Never mind “desire.”
ETA: What I see here, in addition to accusations of outright cowardice, are a lot of writing off the Afghan people as either desiring or deserving of the Taliban. I am simply saying that the Taliban’s ability to rapidly regain control (for now, nominally) of large swathes of territory in the vacuum created by US withdrawal is not by itself sufficient evidence to arrive at such conclusions.
The Afghans have had 20 years of training, equipment supply, examples, etc. for them to draw upon and learn from. Yet, as soon as their outside prop is taken away, they fold up like a cheap card.
You can’t fail somebody who refuses to be helped in any meaningful way.
It’s not just the Taliban making rapid territorial progress in the last few weeks. It’s that they survived for 20 years under occupation of the US military. If the Afghan people really wanted to be rid of the Taliban, they could have pointed out the local Taliban to the US military back in the day and have us get rid of them. The fact that they didn’t implies that many, possibly most, of those rural people are sympathetic to or perhaps even consider themselves to be members of the Taliban. It’s like Republicans here in the US. They aren’t being forced, at the barrel of a gun, to support Trump. That’s who they are.
The argument you and bootb are using tracks fairly closely with the attitudes expressed as early as the immediate post-reconstruction period in the US, as if it was more than enough time and that any racial inequality in the US after about 1885 was because that’s just the way “they” are.
Again, you are wrong to write off the people for not having had the benefits you or I were born into.
I don’t disagree that maybe the locals didn’t really want to be helped, but this guy - who was there, and in Iraq - doesn’t think we did such a great job with all that training (apologies if paywalled):
This gets into the whole nature vs. nurture argument of human nature. Maybe it’s because I’ve been left jaded by the recent behavior of the Trumpists, but at this point I’m very sympathetic to the argument that “they” are that way because some people are just naturally jerks, and have an innate attraction to the macho asshole school of leadership.
It’s an interesting read and point of view, but I do think he’s being a little too hard on himself and his fellow soldiers. Perhaps even entirely unrealistic in his expectations. It’s a lot to ask of a foreign military force to not only defeat the immediate threat, but then also to train the local army and to also establish a working national infrastructure to maintain them without the proper backing of the local population and government.
One man’s help is another man’s colonialism/imperialism. How would you respond if Afghani troops came into the US in order to teach you how to be more like them?
Mike Jason did train the military institutions of Afghanistan. Those institutions yielded to the US as long as we were present. With our departure they preserved themselves and merged with whatever is next.
Depends on which Afghanis were coming, and who they were training to be more like them. There’s a difference between the Taliban coming to San Francisco to try to “educate” them out of their liberal ways vs. someone like one of these women coming to teach a bunch of Trump supporting men in rural Alabama to not be macho jerks.
I keep hoping the Afghans will wake up before its too late.
The Iraqi army was literally running away from rebel forces. It was only when Baghdad was threatened that the government forces fought back. The government asked for US help but most of the fighting was by the Iraq forces. They retook Mosul in 2017.CNN provided coverage and there was a lot of confidence and pride in Iraqi special forces. They were battle hardened and effective.
Not much anyone can do in Afghanistan. Wait and see if the forces we trained will fight.
Are we gonna keep pretending that modern-day Afghanistan wasn’t the entirely foreseeable outcome of our decision to stop the Afghan’s from bringing their country into the 19th century because . . . communism bad?
Logistically, the US has the technological superiority to defeat most military forces in fairly short order, and they can do this throughout the world. What we’re not in a position to do is to maintain control of these places. Perhaps if Pakistan hadn’t been a supporter of the Taliban, the outcome could have been different. But there wasn’t much we could do beyond teaching the Taliban a lesson in not supporting Al Qaida.
Because.they.are.Afghan.not.Foreign.
How difficult is this thing to grasp.
Because the government forces are also Afghan?
Not according to cell phone polling:
Obviously some substantial number of people there believe in Taliban ideology. But, in part because of their policies concerning women, the Taliban couldn’t win a free and fair election. Maybe the current Kabul regime couldn’t either, but the Taliban seem to be particularly feared and unpopular.
A client state that only survived due to US backing, as is now being revealed.
In my book the USA broke it and now they bought it.
Bring Bush, Cheney c.s. to justice or own the occupation and try to make it work.
You don’t get to walk away from such a clusterfuck and wash your hands.
The only reason we hadn’t left yet is because everyone knew that as soon as we leave, the country will collapse to the Taliban, and no one (until now) was willing to have that collapse happen under their watch. But staying wasn’t benefiting US national security - it was just postponing this collapse which those in power were afraid would make them look bad. In essence, we were staying for politics.
Good for Biden for being willing to take this political hit in order to get us out of another forever war. Hopefully we take the Afghans who helped us with us - we definitely owe it to them. But it was long past time to end this silliness. Prolonging the inevitable isn’t a good strategy for anything.