Afghanistan (Again)

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The founder of a mercenary group acting unethical? I'm shocked, just shocked, that is unprecedented.

More upsetting is the fact that they are probably the #1 reason we stayed there so long so they could continue to do this shit, but we're too busy going "But Republicans/Democrats!" about it.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Taliban tries to breach Panjshir; gets thrashed by Resistance Force with heavy casualties

Taliban tries to breach Panjshir; gets thrashed by Resistance Force with heavy casualties

www.republicworld.com

The Taliban never gets tired of having their ass handed to them by the Northern Alliance.

Hm, wonder why I’m getting this story from India. Doesn’t seem to be registering with the usual western media sources.

I saw that go past me somewhere other than in that source but don't remember where now.

Anyway Panjshir province may be the last one standing right now but tribal resistance to the Taliban will ratchet back up as time goes on. Taliban are still seen as occupiers especially in the north, particularly when monetary emoluments recently made start fading from memory. How long will that take?

Biden argued early during Obama's presidency that even a surge and then counterintelligence style efforts going forward in Afghanistan were not going to win the day there.

Some contemporary American general or field commander said back then that "this will all end in an argument". Yeah... but apparently not all that soon. Not there, not here. Even now the USA's beltway neocons beat the drum that there was and so still is a way to "win it".

Win what? The quagmire was failure to define the extension of the original "retaliate!!" mission in a way that would ever draw in all of Afghanistan. "Afghanistan" per se remains a geopolitical construct, not a nation.

Around a week ago, I mentioned the fact that both Amrullah Saleh (the vice-president of the ousted administration, who had served as a very able head of the NDS, the intelligence service) and Ahmad Massoud (ths son of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud) had both found their way to the Panjshir Valley and had set themselves up against Taliban rule.

One account I have read suggests that the son of General Dostum (the Uzbek warlord) has also joined them.

Among other things, I have no doubt that - by their actions, and their presence as a focus for opposition to Taliban rule - they are seeking to challenge the narrative that Afghans were not prepared to fight the Taliban; I would expect these individuals (and their supporters) to fight the Taliban until the bitter end.

Given that the Panjshir Valley was never conquered by the Taliban during their earlier period in power, - and Saleh's loathing of the Taliban is deeply felt, intensely personal as well as political (they had murdered his sister) - and was the location of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud's resistance (to Taliban rule) with the Northern Alliance, this should have significant resonance across Afghanistan.

However, it is interesting that Indian sources appear to be the only credible sources covering their resistance in any depth.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

However, it is interesting that Indian sources appear to be the only credible sources covering their resistance in any depth.

The western media is serving the establishment with the narrative that our presence in Afghanistan was the best thing that ever happened to them and they are all helpless desperate victims when we're not there. A successful resistance not lead by the US doesn't fit that narrative.

 

[lizkat]

Around a week ago, I mentioned the fact that both Amrullah Saleh (the vice-president of the ousted administration, who had served as a very able head of the NDS, the intelligence service) and Ahmad Massoud (ths son of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud) had both found their way to the Panjshir Valley and had set themselves up against Taliban rule.

One account I have read suggests that the son of General Dostum (the Uzbek warlord) has also joined them.

Among other things, I have no doubt that - by their actions, and their presece as a focus for oposition to Taliban rule - they are seeking to challenge the narrative that Afghans were not prepared to fight theTaiban; I would expect these individuals (and their supporters) to fight the Taliban until the bitter end.

Given that the Panjshir Valley was never conquered by the Taliban during their earlier period in power, - and Saleh's loathing of the Taliban is deeply felt, intensely personal as well as political (they had murdered his sister) - and was the location of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud's resistance (to taliban rule) with the Northern Alliance, this should have significant resonance across Afghanistan.

However, it is interesting that Indian sources appear to be the only credible sources covering their resistance in any depth.

Well and we should not be surprised at such news coverage. India's interest in Afghanistan is substantial because of its fraught relationships with both China and Pakistan.

Consider India's longstanding hostile relationship with Pakistan, which is now sandwiched between Afghanistan and India but which --before the independence and partition of India in 1947-- was once part and parcel of India. Afghanistan acknowledged Pakistan as a country but never formally accepted the Durand line of separation.

Pakistan has long tolerated that porous border and related activities of residents in that area, so it's now plausibly the dog that caught the Afghan car, but may not be sure what to do with it yet... since that may depend on how the West comes to view the new Afghan ruling arrangement. It's worth noting that Pakistan has now closed off access to Afghans seeking to flee Pakistan as it fears spread of social unrest beyond its border area.

Not to give the musings of the Council on Foreign relations undue weight, but they're not wrong about the tense state of Chinese-Indian relationships, even after the spring 2021 negotiated cessation of open hostilities over the border region of Ladakh.

Preparing for Heightened Tensions Between China and India

China-India tensions remain high. To reduce the threat of conflict, Daniel S. Markey recommends the U.S. boost aid to India and begin working with like-minded partners to develop a coordinated response strategy.

www.cfr.org

Any future India-Pakistan conflict is more likely to implicate China because Beijing’s strategic embrace of Islamabad has tightened in recent years. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is delivering tens of billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investments to Pakistan, including in territories claimed by India. Rather than urging restraint from both India and Pakistan in their 2019 crisis, Beijing accepted Islamabad’s position that it needed to escalate the conflict to deter future Indian aggression. Also, like Pakistan, China contests Indian control over parts of Kashmir and has criticized India’s August 2019 revocation of Kashmir’s special constitutional status. If ongoing India-Pakistan peace overtures falter, as they have so many times in the past, an overlapping crisis that pits both China and Pakistan against India simultaneously poses a realistic threat.

So again to poor Afghanistan with that sometimes impassable and always bleak terrain at its northeastern juncture with China: the latter hopes to cut deals with a more stable Afghan government for exploitation of mineral resources but the easiest route out of Afghanistan to China is by way of the roads China is already building in Pakistan.

And then again to Pakistan's interests in all these matters:

Pakistan’s Pyrrhic Victory in Afghanistan

Islamabad will come to regret aiding the Taliban’s resurgence.

www.foreignaffairs.com

Pakistan’s security establishment has long obsessed about imposing a friendly government in Kabul. That fixation is rooted in the belief that India is plotting to break up Pakistan along ethnic lines and that Afghanistan will be the launching pad for antigovernment insurgencies in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions. These fears have their roots in the fact that Afghanistan claimed parts of Balochistan and Pakistan’s Pashtun regions at the time of Pakistan’s creation in August 1947. Afghanistan recognized Pakistan and established diplomatic relations a few days later but did not acknowledge the British-drawn Durand Line as an international border until 1976. Afghanistan also remained friendly with India, leading Pakistan to allow Afghan Islamists to organize on its territory even before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.

So no wonder India has more of a focus in their news coverage on resistance to the Taliban in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. India had hoped to offset its own hostile relationships with China by developing stronger ties to the US in the wake of problematic China-US dealings in the past five years. The fall of the US in Afghanistan throws more than a bit of a wrench into the works from India's point of view.

 

[lizkat]

Hard to read but also inspiring: an AP piece on a couple in Tennessee who lost their son in Afghanistan but are constructing a lodge in the woods that will enable combat veterans with PTSD and in need of quiet time to find peace for awhile with fellow vets in similar straits.

'Was it worth it?' A fallen Marine and a war's crushing end

SPRINGVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — She was folding a red sweater when she heard a car door slam, went to the window and realized that a moment she always imagined would kill her was about to be made real: three Marines and a Navy chaplain were walking toward her door, and that could only mean one thing.

apnews.com

And then, as she recalls it, she lost her mind. She ran wildly through the house. She opened the door and told the men they couldn’t come inside. She picked up a flower basket and hurled it at them. She screamed so loud and for so long the next day she could not speak.

“I just wanted them not to say anything,” said Gretchen Catherwood, “because if they said it, it would be true. And, of course, it was.”

Her 19-year-old son was dead, killed fighting the Taliban on Oct. 14, 2010.

As she watched the news over the last two weeks, it felt like that day happened 10 minutes ago. The American military pulled out of Afghanistan, and all they had fought so hard to build seemed to collapse in an instant. The Afghan military put down its weapons, the president fled and the Taliban took over. As thousands crushed into the Kabul airport desperate to escape, Gretchen Catherwood felt like she could feel in her hands the red sweater she’d been folding the moment she learned her son was dead.

Her phone buzzed with messages from the family she’s assembled since that horrible day: the officer who’d dodged the flowerpot; the parents of others killed in battle or by suicide since; her son’s fellow fighters in the storied 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regment, nicknamed the Darkhorse Battalion, that endured the highest rate of causalities in Afghanistan. Many of them call her “Ma.”

“There are three things I need you to know,” she said to some. “You did not fight for nothing. Alec did not lose his life for nothing. I will be here for you no matter what, until the day I die. Those are the things I need you to remember.”

In the woods behind her house, the Darkhorse Lodge is under construction. She and her husband are building a retreat for combat veterans, a place where they can gather and grapple together with the horrors of war. There are 25 rooms, each named after one of the men killed from her son’s battalion. The ones who made it home have become their surrogate sons, she said. And she knows of more than a half-dozen who have died from suicide.

“I am fearful of what this might do to them psychologically. They’re so strong and so brave and so courageous. But they also have really, really big hearts. And I feel that they might internalize a lot and blame themselves,” she said. “And oh God, I hope they don’t blame themselves.”

 

[SuperMatt]

Republican leaders: How dare Biden leave Afghanistan? What about the poor Afghan people that will suffer under the Taliban now?
Also Republican leaders: We don’t want Afghan refugees coming to America.

So do Republican leaders care about the Afghan people or not? Gonna say NOT:

“You can be sure the Taliban, who are now in complete control, didn’t allow the best and brightest to board these evacuation flights,” Trump said Tuesday. “Instead, we can only imagine how many thousands of terrorists have been airlifted out of Afghanistan and into neighborhoods around the world.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday said he was concerned that early planes were carrying unknown people with potentially questionable ties.

“I will tell you, from an ISIS, from al-Qaeda, and from a Taliban point of view, do you think they’ll take advantage of this situation? Do you think they put some people in there?” he said. “I pretty much believe they would.”

Meanwhile, the reality of the situation:

After flights filled with Afghans leave the Kabul airport, they said, evacuees are flown into third-party countries. At that point, they undergo biometric and biographical background checks. If they are cleared, they can fly to the United States and then must submit to health screenings, which includes coronavirus testing and soon will probably also include vaccinations.

McCarthy and Trump should be ashamed of themselves. Of course, there are bigger a-holes…

“If history is any guide, and it’s always a guide, we will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country, and over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions,” Fox News’s Tucker Carlson said during one of several segments he has devoted to the issue over the last week. “So first we invade, and then we are invaded.”

Good news: most Americans DO want to help the Afghan people:

But polling suggests that even in the midst of deep partisan divides, there is widespread bipartisan support for helping Afghan translators and others who aided the U.S.-led war effort. Some 81 percent of Americans said the United States should support those Afghans, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll published on Sunday, with 90 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of Republicans backing the efforts.

https://wapo.st/2Wzlhrw

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

On a positive note.

Housing, jobs and free calls: How businesses are supporting Afghan refugees

Airbnb, Verizon, Walmart, and others are rushing to support the thousands of refugees that have been evacuated from Afghanistan in recent days.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I miss her from politics. This just randomly hit my YouTube suggested feed.

Also she looks like DC's recent Wonder Woman. Is that sexist to think?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Has anyone here thought to take a look at the video that (Lieut-Colonel USMC - since dismissed/retired) Stuart Scheller posted?

The full four minute (plus) version?

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state | Zack Kopplin

The Afghan state was held together by theft, extortion and nepotism – at the highest levels, says accountability investigator Zack Kopplin

www.theguardian.com

 

[Thomas Veil]

Well, that explains a lot. A whole lot.

You have to believe these levels of corruption were known to the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. Was there nothing they could have done?

 

[SuperMatt]

Well, that explains a lot. A whole lot.

You have to believe these levels of corruption were known to the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. Was there nothing they could have done?

For the US to have influence over a leader of a foreign nation, that leader must be unpopular. Why? If they are popular, they don’t need the US to help them stay in power. The people support them and they have the mandate of the masses. This was the situation in Vietnam. Thiêu was unpopular, so he filled his government with loyalists and was highly corrupt. He held sham elections. America knew this and didn’t care because it meant that Thiêu was sure to be in their pocket.

This policy let the US control him. However, it meant that the average person in Vietnam started to support the North, even if they were opposed to communism.

Judging from the rampant corruption in the Afghan government and the rapid fall to the Taliban, I feel like similar dynamics were in play in 2000s Afghanistan.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Well, it's done. We're out, slightly ahead of schedule.

 

[Herdfan]

Well, it's done. We're out, slightly ahead of schedule.

Is every American out? Every Afghani who helped us and will be executed if found? I doubt it.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Is every American out? Every Afghani who helped us and will be executed if found? I doubt it.

I would like to book a flight to the perfect world you live in.

 

[Herdfan]

I would like to book a flight to the perfect world you live in.

It's something to shoot for.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

It's something to shoot for.

I see what you did there.

Things could have gone better for sure but in relation to our time there, it could have been a lot messier and I don't think anybody would be surprised.

 

[Thomas Veil]

The way this has gone, I've actually been dreading this moment. I have a feeling we're going to hear about some American diplomats or contractors who got left behind in the confusion.

As for the Afghans who were helping us all these years...well, our attitude has been "Too bad, so sad," so I assume we're going to see quite a few more of them shot, beheaded or otherwise terminated.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The way this has gone, I've actually been dreading this moment. I have a feeling we're going to hear about some American diplomats or contractors who got left behind in the confusion.

As for the Afghans who were helping us all these years...well, our attitude has been "Too bad, so sad," so I assume we're going to see quite a few more of them shot, beheaded or otherwise terminated.

Hopefully the refugees that made/make it here have a good experience and we get lots of coverage of that.

 

[lizkat]

Well, that explains a lot. A whole lot.

You have to believe these levels of corruption were known to the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. Was there nothing they could have done?

The influx of money and ensuing corruption were part of the glue holding the central government together at all.