The Afghanistan and Pakistan Thread

[Gunz]

I bet I could take that motherfucker.

 

[AWP]

Fuck Mark Milley.

 

[Box]

...right in his stupid hypocritical ass.

 

[Blizzard]

Speaking of...and adding to earlier comments here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1770164425137213502

 

[R.Caerbannog]

COULD we? Sure.

But we had no chance of that. Ever.

I don't know if it began with the Balkans or what, but world pressure and our hubris wouldn't allow us to fly in, break stuff, and leave. The "solution" was seen as "humane": replace the Taliban with some old fashioned Democracy. Easy peasy, the best way to avoid these things in the future. A national level execution of "give a man to fish, teach a man to fish".

Pivoting a bit, one could make the argument the rapid SOF campaign which brought down the country contributed greatly to our view on Afghanistan. We thought the country a pushover and after years of oppressive Taliban rule, how hard could it be to rebuild a country? I seriously think sometimes the Bush admin thought they would have a Northern Ireland type of situation on hand: limited violence along the way to a peaceful resolution.

Yeah, Western pressure/ beliefs wouldn't allow us to even consider breaking stuff and leaving. The best option didn't stand a chance.

The bolded makes me wonder. We all remember the GWOT taking place before social media. After we were attacked everyone was united and there were calls for blood. Even the liberals in the media were suddenly "patriotic Americans". I'm wondering how that changed, we went from breaking things to building democracy.

Cause someone in DC pushed for this, someone popularized the plight of the Afghans via the media, and finally someone profited from all of this. We now know that China has been a big benefactor from the mineral trade in Afghanistan. Before China had people in Afghanistan someone was making bank, supplying US forces and funneling US money into that country; where it all mysteriously disappeared and not just into Emirati banks.

If we do a surface-level examination we see that it made sense to go into Afghanistan like we did. If the goals were, as several people have mentioned in this thread, to 1) defeat AQ and 2) make sure AFG couldn't be used as a base to attack us again... well, to quote T.R. Fehrenbach, you're going to have to put your young men in the mud.

Going heavy into Afghanistan made sense strategically. The Taliban were bad people and were helping facilitate disruption around the world by allowing various terrorist organizations free reign inside their territory. And if there's one thing that a global hegemon dislikes more than anything else, it's disruption. We were never going to fully defeat AQ unless we went in on the ground. We could shoot all the missiles we want, we can drop bombs to our heart's content, but we all know that in the way we fight today, decisive ops happen on the ground. And if we were going to make sure the Taliban weren't going to allow AQ to reconstitute, or other terrorist groups use their territory to attack us, then we had to invade.

Moreover, Afghanistan is super-strategically positioned. Landlocked and with bad neighbors, Afghanistan borders Iran (whom we don't like), three of the former parts of the Soviet Union (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), China (whom we don't like) and Pakistan (whom we... well, it's complicated). So having a US presence there, at say, Bagram airbase, would be great strategic positioning for us. If nuclear-armed Pakistan falls apart... we're right there. If Iran wants to get froggy... we now can threaten their east flank. If Russia starts breaking bad... we have a major air base super-close to their soft underbelly. Plus, yeah-yeah Al Qaeda blahblahblah.

So it makes sense... unless you start thinking it through. Afghans have a culture built around austerity and warfare. People like to say Afghanistan has never been conquered, but that's bullshit. Just about anyone who wanted to rolled over the country, from Alexander the Great onward. But no one wanted to keep it, because the Afghans are ungovernable. They can't even govern themselves. There was no way that we were going to make the generations-long commitment to doing what it took to make Afghanistan functional. Plus, the Taliban never saw themselves as defeated, and Afghanistan as only temporarily occupied. "The Americans have the watches, but we have the time." Plus, with our erstwhile "allies," Pakistan, not only allowing the insurgency to rest, train, and grow inside their FATA, but also directing Taliban proxies against us (looking at you, ISI and HQN), we never had a chance of being successful.

We also tried to foist a whole bunch of other people's pet projects onto to an Afghanistan that was not ready for it. We were trying to give "democracy" and centralized government to people who don't even listen to their local tribal chiefs. We did infrastructure improvement projects that the locals didn't want, and weren't willing to maintain. We gave the Afghans equipment like Blackhawk helicopters that were super expensive and costly & complicated to maintain. We were trying to build girls' schools in a country where women were cloistered and pederasty was not only accepted, but encouraged.

Going in on the ground made sense, but what also made sense was to go all Gulf War 1 on them and then go home. Maybe fund a little Northern Alliance for a while. Something. Anything other than this.

Per the bolded. We're still friends with the Israeli's even after their Epstein Operation. At this point, I'm wondering how many of our "allies" aren't degenerate pedophiles that bilk us for money and resources. It makes no sense as to why we ally with such people, they're hindrances at best and enemies at worst.

It's just what they do after they retire to get invites to podcasts and CNN. My guess its a very lucrative gig.

Is his book out yet?

That's another thing that smells fishy. I'm wondering where these guys are getting these job offers. No profitable business in it's right mind would hire a woke DEI retard like Milley, but here we are. None of this makes sense, unless the gig's he's getting are a form of renumeration/kickbacks for fucking up. Which makes me wonder who is footing the bill.

The book thing is another weird thing I'm seeing. The majority of people, especially younger folks, don't really read. How are they selling so many books?

 

[AWP]

The bolded makes me wonder. We all remember the GWOT taking place before social media. After we were attacked everyone was united and there were calls for blood. Even the liberals in the media were suddenly "patriotic Americans". I'm wondering how that changed, we went from breaking things to building democracy.

Cause someone in the DC pushed for this, someone popularized the plight of the Afghans via the media, and finally someone profited from all of this. We now know that China has been a big benefactor from the mineral trade in Afghanistan. Before China had people in Afghanistan someone was making bank, supplying US forces and funneling US money into that country; where it all mysteriously disappeared and not just into Emirati banks.

I think the Balkans and Rwanda kind of did it, maybe Haiti, I'm probably missing one or two. As you probably remember in the 90's there was this big call to "do something!" and the US became the world's police force. Other nations would contribute approximately jack and shit, but wanted us to do the heavy lifting.

I think we didn't do the right thing in Afghanistan because we knew how the world would react to us abandoning Afghans to "the suffering of those poor Afghans, hopelessly caught in a cycle of poverty and violence." Well, no shit, world, that cycle is what passes for culture in Afghanistan. We made an emotional decision and those usually end poorly.

 

[R.Caerbannog]

I think the Balkans and Rwanda kind of did it, maybe Haiti, I'm probably missing one or two. As you probably remember in the 90's there was this big call to "do something!" and the US became the world's police force. Other nations would contribute approximately jack and shit, but wanted us to do the heavy lifting.

I think we didn't do the right thing in Afghanistan because we knew how the world would react to us abandoning Afghans to "the suffering of those poor Afghans, hopelessly caught in a cycle of poverty and violence." Well, no shit, world, that cycle is what passes for culture in Afghanistan. We made an emotional decision and those usually end poorly.

That's what I'm getting at. Someone in the halls of power funded the think tanks and paid for the media to run this zeitgeist on the American public. Growing up even the textbooks were very neoliberal about this. How we needed to do our part to keep the world in order. Someone was paid to print and disseminate this information.

After the past 30 years, I'm kinda wondering what the long play was back then. Cause it feels like we got played and a bunch of taxpayer money magically disappeared.

 

[AWP]

After the past 30 years, I'm kinda wondering what the long play was back then. Cause it feels like we got played and a bunch of taxpayer money magically disappeared.

Rhetorically, was there a long play at the time or were the conditions exploited into the long play? What's the quote about seeing opportunity in crisis or something? Maybe we did a feel good thing and someone came along later and turned it into what we have now? Dunno.

 

[R.Caerbannog]

Rhetorically, was there a long play at the time or were the conditions exploited into the long play? What's the quote about seeing opportunity in crisis or something? Maybe we did a feel good thing and someone came along later and turned it into what we have now? Dunno.

Normally, it'd be safer to bet on a series of cascading failures leading up to the current negative outcomes. That said, don't you think things have gotten a bit too crazy? While it would be easier to attribute the failures we see as gross incompetence, I'm leaning towards malfeasance.

The people who botched the withdrawal were at the Pentagon for a very long time. These were people who were groomed to take these roles and they failed at every turn. All the while they received their marching orders from an entrenched political class that is corrupt and vaguely anti American on a good day.

On a tactical level we mopped the floor with our enemies. So much so, that the shitheads in DC hamstrung us with ridiculous ROE's. Hell you gotta remember the 82nd officer they jailed, for killing a raghead with a radio. The DC and DoD shitheads treated the war like we weren't supposed to win.

Same thing happened in Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam, and a bunch of other brushfire wars. Our political elite betrayed us at every turn and only now are we starting to see how compromised they are. Five years ago if I told you Joe Biden took showers with his underage daughter, had a crackhead money laundering son, and was funneling bribe money for the Chinese, would you have believed me?

Today I'm saying that something stinks. One is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action.

 

[Topkick]

Today I'm saying that something stinks. One is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action.

Its simple. Military industrial complex. There was money to be made. Long term deals with Halliburton, etc were made and the decision makers were/are connected. The longer you stay, the more doe you make. It's still happening today. War is a lucrative business for company executives...er..I mean "elected" officials.

 

[Gunz]

 

[AWP]

Normally, it'd be safer to bet on a series of cascading failures leading up to the current negative outcomes. That said, don't you think things have gotten a bit too crazy? While it would be easier to attribute the failures we see as gross incompetence, I'm leaning towards malfeasance.

The people who botched the withdrawal were at the Pentagon for a very long time. These were people who were groomed to take these roles and they failed at every turn. All the while they received their marching orders from an entrenched political class that is corrupt and vaguely anti American on a good day.

On a tactical level we mopped the floor with our enemies. So much so, that the shitheads in DC hamstrung us with ridiculous ROE's. Hell you gotta remember the 82nd officer they jailed, for killing a raghead with a radio. The DC and DoD shitheads treated the war like we weren't supposed to win.

Same thing happened in Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam, and a bunch of other brushfire wars. Our political elite betrayed us at every turn and only now are we starting to see how compromised they are. Five years ago if I told you Joe Biden took showers with his underage daughter, had a crackhead money laundering son, and was funneling bribe money for the Chinese, would you have believed me?

Today I'm saying that something stinks. One is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action.

I'm not arguing with your points above. My take is, was the "US as the world's policeman" policy made as a feel-good or whateverthehell gesture that was co-opted or was the policeman argument started specifically for an end-game, slow burn strategy? I don't know because I think both arguments have merit. What I don't deny is there are obvious efforts made on behalf of a number of interests/ entities which are detrimental to the US'...future existence.

I guess one "fer instance" could be the current trans or DEI bullshit. Were those policies started to play into the hands of our enemies or to destroy the country OR were they more feel-good initiatives started by a group of wack jobs, later picked up by Soros et. al. for their purposes? In the case of the trans debate, I take the latter view. It slowly gained steam in fringe groups and then later exploded into America's consciousness. How did that explosion happen? Traditional and social media coverage. Those can be bought or manipulated, but they aren't cheap. Someone identified a divisive topic in America and then poured money into that topic, placing it front and center.

 

[Topkick]

Cause it feels like we got played and a bunch of taxpayer money magically disappeared.

It's a hard pill for those of us who served abroad to swallow, but I've accepted that we were duped. I take solace in the fact that some bad people no longer exist, and we did our jobs, but also accept that we were used to make other bad people rich. That's only my conclusion, FWIW.

 

[Devildoc]

It was not hard to see that our mission took a radical, hard turn when they started putting in Green Beans coffee joints. That meant we were staying. It moved from an expeditionary hunt for AQ/UBL to occupying the country and doing the nation-building thing. At that point we were done.

 

[Devildoc]

If we do a surface-level examination we see that it made sense to go into Afghanistan like we did. If the goals were, as several people have mentioned in this thread, to 1) defeat AQ and 2) make sure AFG couldn't be used as a base to attack us again... well, to quote T.R. Fehrenbach, you're going to have to put your young men in the mud.

Going heavy into Afghanistan made sense strategically. The Taliban were bad people and were helping facilitate disruption around the world by allowing various terrorist organizations free reign inside their territory. And if there's one thing that a global hegemon dislikes more than anything else, it's disruption. We were never going to fully defeat AQ unless we went in on the ground. We could shoot all the missiles we want, we can drop bombs to our heart's content, but we all know that in the way we fight today, decisive ops happen on the ground. And if we were going to make sure the Taliban weren't going to allow AQ to reconstitute, or other terrorist groups use their territory to attack us, then we had to invade.

Moreover, Afghanistan is super-strategically positioned. Landlocked and with bad neighbors, Afghanistan borders Iran (whom we don't like), three of the former parts of the Soviet Union (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), China (whom we don't like) and Pakistan (whom we... well, it's complicated). So having a US presence there, at say, Bagram airbase, would be great strategic positioning for us. If nuclear-armed Pakistan falls apart... we're right there. If Iran wants to get froggy... we now can threaten their east flank. If Russia starts breaking bad... we have a major air base super-close to their soft underbelly. Plus, yeah-yeah Al Qaeda blahblahblah.

So it makes sense... unless you start thinking it through. Afghans have a culture built around austerity and warfare. People like to say Afghanistan has never been conquered, but that's bullshit. Just about anyone who wanted to rolled over the country, from Alexander the Great onward. But no one wanted to keep it, because the Afghans are ungovernable. They can't even govern themselves. There was no way that we were going to make the generations-long commitment to doing what it took to make Afghanistan functional. Plus, the Taliban never saw themselves as defeated, and Afghanistan as only temporarily occupied. "The Americans have the watches, but we have the time." Plus, with our erstwhile "allies," Pakistan, not only allowing the insurgency to rest, train, and grow inside their FATA, but also directing Taliban proxies against us (looking at you, ISI and HQN), we never had a chance of being successful.

We also tried to foist a whole bunch of other people's pet projects onto to an Afghanistan that was not ready for it. We were trying to give "democracy" and centralized government to people who don't even listen to their local tribal chiefs. We did infrastructure improvement projects that the locals didn't want, and weren't willing to maintain. We gave the Afghans equipment like Blackhawk helicopters that were super expensive and costly & complicated to maintain. We were trying to build girls' schools in a country where women were cloistered and pederasty was not only accepted, but encouraged.

Going in on the ground made sense, but what also made sense was to go all Gulf War 1 on them and then go home. Maybe fund a little Northern Alliance for a while. Something. Anything other than this.

I think this is a great post, and I need to think about this more.

In hindsight, going in heavy was absolutely the right call. Every S2 guy thought we'd be shot down left and right by 'the ring of fire.' But once that was debunked we should have had a chat with the Taliban: we're going after AQ and UBL. Stand aside, we'll do what we need to do, and we'll go home. It could have been a SOF-focused mission set supported by a smaller footprint of non-SOF support. Once we shifted from that mission to 'while we're here let's overthrow the Taliban' and went into nation building it became a shit show.

I am not sure A-stan was ever really 'conquered', other nations simply occupied the land while the tribes did their tribal thing. Maybe we're saying the same thing as it's a distinction without a difference. Of all the invasions they have suffered, our was far the longest of any, so the concept of homefield advantage and the (money) quote about 'America has the watches but we have the time' is spot on.

Anyhoo, my Wednesday morning thoughts. For now.

 

[DA SWO]

I think the Balkans and Rwanda kind of did it, maybe Haiti, I'm probably missing one or two. As you probably remember in the 90's there was this big call to "do something!" and the US became the world's police force. Other nations would contribute approximately jack and shit, but wanted us to do the heavy lifting.

I think we didn't do the right thing in Afghanistan because we knew how the world would react to us abandoning Afghans to "the suffering of those poor Afghans, hopelessly caught in a cycle of poverty and violence." Well, no shit, world, that cycle is what passes for culture in Afghanistan. We made an emotional decision and those usually end poorly.

Shit started with H.W. trying to save his re-election campaign by putting troops into Somalia, then the next guy expended the mission.

 

[Gunz]

So here’s another question. How different would the war have gone in Afghanistan had we not invaded Iraq? Obviously the diversion of personnel and resources would not have occurred. Do you think the results would’ve been the same?

Studying both wars from the sidelines, if things got fucked up in OEF, it seems to me things were even more fucked up in OIF from the planning stage. Either no plan or the wrong plan by a consortium of people who thought they had all the answers and weren’t open to arguments. And then there was Rumsfeld. And W’s ill-timed carrier landing pronouncement…and Fedayeen, and debaathification, and blah blah blah

 

[Devildoc]

So here’s another question. How different would the war have gone in Afghanistan had we not invaded Iraq? Obviously the diversion of personnel and resources would not have occurred. Do you think the results would’ve been the same?

Studying both wars from the sidelines, if things got fucked up in OEF, it seems to me things were even more fucked up in OIF from the planning stage. Either no plan or the wrong plan by a consortium of people who thought they had all the answers and weren’t open to arguments. And then there was Rumsfeld. And W’s ill-timed carrier landing pronouncement…and Fedayeen, and debaathification, and blah blah blah

Personally I think the results would have been the same.

I will also say, for as fucked up as Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld were about the 'why' of Iraq, the initial invasion was a very solid military plan.

 

[Topkick]

Top…you have no idea how much respect and admiration I have for all of you who served in the GWOT. I only wish I’d been there alongside, with rifle, ruck and frags.

But take it from me. There is that sense of having been sold out that may stay with you. It has for me. And sometimes you think your bros and sisters got killed and maimed for nothing. But that’s not true. If they got killed or maimed or damaged in the mind, they got killed or maimed or damaged for the rest of us, their brothers and sisters in arms…and we would’ve done the same thing for them. Any. Fucking. Day.

Yeah, that truth is always going to be there. Even worse for you Vietnam vets. Sickening that you weren't welcomed home in your badass uniforms. Despicable.

Welcome home, brother!

 

[Topkick]

Personally I think the results would have been the same.

I will also say, for as fucked up as Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld were about the 'why' of Iraq, the initial invasion was a very solid military plan.

I'm giving that W to the wartime commanders. Especially Col Perkins and 2nd brigade, 3rd ID. They took a licking and kept on ticking.