The Afghanistan and Pakistan Thread

[Marauder06]

I hate the phrase "graveyard of nations" because how many nations were brought down because of Afghanistan? Lost a war? Sure. Lost a country? Nope.

Yep. I've always thought the "graveyard of empires" description was over-hyped. Pretty much any country who has ever wanted to, has conquered whatever part of Afghanistan that they wanted to. That's why you're rolling up Afghans that have features of Chinese, all-of-the-'stanis, Russian, Greek, Iranian, Indian... you name it. The fact that the country was so worthless that no one wanted to keep it, is not something to be proud of IMO.

 

[AWP]

Yep. I've always thought the "graveyard of empires" description was over-hyped. Pretty much any country who has ever wanted to, has conquered whatever part of Afghanistan that they wanted to. That's why you're rolling up Afghans that have features of Chinese, all-of-the-'stanis, Russian, Greek, Iranian, Indian... you name it. The fact that the country was so worthless that no one wanted to keep it, is not something to be proud of IMO.

And keep in mind the industrialized nations that the Afghan rabble defeated were defeated because those nations were just stupid. Afghans are brave fighters, very cunning, but cannot last against a determined and intelligent enemy. Bad leadership and bad tactics yield bad results. The Afghans don't have some magic formula or aura, they have fought opponents with bad leaders and the US is no exception. We haven't fought a 19-year war, we've fought 19 consecutive one-year wars.

 

[SpitfireV]

I think arrogant rather than stupid is maybe a better word. All the countries that have fought in Afghanistan haven't been dumb (collectively) and are/were advanced societies. I think underestimating the willpower of a Pashtun with a musket/LE/AK hasn't helped. Thoughts?

 

[AWP]

I think arrogant rather than stupid is maybe a better word. All the countries that have fought in Afghanistan haven't been dumb (collectively) and are/were advanced societies. I think underestimating the willpower of a Pashtun with a musket/LE/AK hasn't helped. Thoughts?

Arrogance is good and probably rolls up the other reasons in a tight bundle.

 

[Devildoc]

@AWP , I like @Marauder06 "graveyard of empires" better, but not my phrase. That said, there is good evidence that the dissolution of the USSR was made possible by their fiasco in A-stan, but that would be a 'n' of 1.

Every country that tried to subjugate that God-forsaken land has ended up much worse for wear.

 

[Gunz]

Once upon a time...



The End.

 

[Kaldak]

I thought THAT was the rant!

If that is an @AWP Rant, you haven't read Monday motivation.

I'm with @AWP And @Marauder06 on the whole graveyard comment. The Russians left, Alexander left. The fall of those regimes were impacted and perpetuated by other factors more than defeat in Afghanistan.

It's a nice media phrase though.

 

[Devildoc]

If that is an @AWP Rant, you haven't read Monday motivation.

I'm with @AWP And @Marauder06 on the whole graveyard comment. The Russians left, Alexander left. The fall of those regimes were impacted and perpetuated by other factors more than defeat in Afghanistan.

It's a nice media phrase though.

I don't know much about what the impacts of being in Afghanistan were to most countries, but it was a direct contributor to the downfall of the Soviet Union. Not the singular cause, but it was the gas for that fire.

 

[Kaldak]

To me, they were already on the downturn, and AF didn't really defeat them there...we did. Aid, assistance, advising, etc.

It wasn't really AF v Soviet Union.

 

[Devildoc]

To me, they were already on the downturn, and AF didn't really defeat them there...we did. Aid, assistance, advising, etc.

It wasn't really AF v Soviet Union.

As a global superpower, they were on the downturn. But this was their Vietnam, and the money they sank into that could not allow the Soviet Union to compete with Reagan's arms build up.

It absolutely defeated them, yes with our assistance, especially with the anti-aircraft weapons, but Afghanistan did them what no other country could.

 

[AWP]

AF hastened the USSR's fall. The timing of the pullout and the colllapse are relatively unrelated. The USSR was going down, Reagan's defense spending accelerated the process...and part of that spending occurred over Afghanistan.

 

[Brill]

It absolutely defeated them, yes with our assistance, especially with the anti-aircraft weapons, but Afghanistan did them what no other country could.

Soviet Generals blamed the Politburo for micromanaging the war and sending the troops into an losing situation. According to Grasimov, 15,000 Soviets were killed and 600,000 served in Afghanistan: that’s a lot of misery spread around a place where information was so tightly controlled. People knew the ground truth didn’t match the ”Party line” and the population realized it was all fake news.

 

[Brill]

The timing of the pullout and the colllapse are relatively unrelated.

Happens to the best of us.

 

[Devildoc]

What happened to the Soviet Union and subsequently with Reagan, these events don't happen in a vacuum. The Soviet Union was destined to fall, but if it were not for what happened in Afghanistan, they probably would have been able to keep up with Reagan's defense spending and outlasted Reagan and possibly have gone into the 1990s before they started to falter.

I'm not saying that Afghanistan caused the death of the Soviet Union, but I am saying that it is a contributing factor and without it, the death would have occurred a lot later than it did.

 

[AWP]

Happens to the best of us.

 

[Brill]

Interesting perspective on Soviet demise & Afghanistan and circles back to post-Afghan war realization among the peeps “it’s all a lie”.

(@AWP , I shit you not: your most bestest band is blaring in my kitchen right now.)

Of course, Afghanistan increasingly looked like a long war, but for a 5-million-strong Soviet military force the losses there were negligible. Indeed, though the enormous financial burden of maintaining an empire was to become a major issue in the post-1987 debates, the cost of the Afghan war itself was hardly crushing: Estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion in 1985, it was an insignificant portion of the Soviet GDP.

further

This, in other words, was a Soviet Union at the height of its global power and influence, both in its own view and in the view of the rest of the world. “We tend to forget,” historian Adam Ulam would note later, “that in 1985, no government of a major state appeared to be as firmly in power, its policies as clearly set in their course, as that of the USSR.”

Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong

 

[AWP]

(@AWP , I shit you not: your most bestest band is blaring in my kitchen right now.)

Because you suck as a human being?

<3's!

 

[Brill]

Because you suck as a human being?

<3's!

Isnt Bezos Canadian too (Amazon music)?

 

[ThunderHorse]

Isnt Bezos Canadian too (Amazon music)?

Nuevo Mexicano

 

[RackMaster]

So we're supposed to trust the word of a Haqqani now...

Opinion | What We, the Taliban, Want