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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2021 15:31:54 GMT
As this new tragedy unfolds, I would like to be able to say that I am astonished that the military "experts" seem to have forgotten what has happened in Afghanistan over the last 50 years, not to mention a similar situation in Vietnam. So of course I am not astonished at all -- I am just amazed that there is still so much hypocrisy in geopolitics.
Memory apparently plays no role in such events since the Republicans in the United States are accusing President Biden for the situation even though it was the previous president who announced that American troops would leave the country and also made a "deal" with the taliban. Obviously, American troops had no business being there in the first place except as revenge for 9/11 (are they satisfied now?), but I am wondering how they will commemorate their military wisdom as the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and other places approaches in less than a month.
Naturally, not only Americans were involved in these military actions. France, for example, sent 4000 troops and lost 90 of them. The UK sent 9500 and lost 350.
For what?
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 13, 2021 17:09:23 GMT
I've skirted around the west, south and east side of the country and even been up the Khyber pass to the border, but never entered. It is a fools errand to try and subdue/invade the country but every time, the powers that do invade, think things will be different. They never are. Short term or long term they will throw money and bodies at the problem and always come back with coffins and no resolution. The Government is a joke as are their armed forces and the ironic thing is, the Taliban are good organisers and fighters and if their skewed and screwed up beliefs were more mainstream, the country could progress without western interference.
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Post by patricklondon on Aug 13, 2021 19:05:03 GMT
As this new tragedy unfolds, I would like to be able to say that I am astonished that the military "experts" seem to have forgotten what has happened in Afghanistan over the last 50 years, not to mention a similar situation in Vietnam. More like 180 years: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Afghan_War
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Post by lagatta on Aug 14, 2021 0:00:40 GMT
Indeed.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 14, 2021 2:37:04 GMT
Actually, I had read that the only leader to "successfully" conquer Afghanistan was Genghis Khan in the 13th century. I was just talking about the Soviets and the Americans.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2021 6:37:46 GMT
Kandahar is a corruption of Iskandahar, i.e. Alexander, who quite successfully overcame Afghanistan and several other places are named after him. This lasted about three hundred years and the area was known as Bactria, where the Bactrian camel came from. Can't remember much else.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2021 6:58:19 GMT
"The US and its Nato allies - including the UK - have spent the best part of the last 20 years training and equipping the Afghan security forces. Countless American and British generals have claimed to have created a more powerful and capable Afghan army. Promises that today appear pretty empty." "The Afghan army and police has a troubled history of high casualties, desertions and corruption - with some unscrupulous commanders claiming the salaries of troops who simply didn't exist - so called "ghost soldiers". "It has received billions of dollars to pay for soldiers' salaries and equipment - mostly by the US. In its July 2021 report, SIGAR said more than $88bn (£64bn) had been spent on Afghanistan's security. But it ominously added: "The question of whether that money was well spent will ultimately be answered by the outcome of the fighting on the ground." "But at present it appears that the US and Nato's efforts to bring peace, security and stability to Afghanistan have been as futile as the Soviets before them." www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58187410
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Post by mossie on Aug 14, 2021 7:10:26 GMT
Please don't forget that these people are 'Wily Oriental Gentlemen' and operate on a completely different mindset to us, they distrust us but also see us as fools to be taken advantage of. $88 billion, don't make me laugh. We should leave them to get on with their own business, it is nothing to do with us. AND DO NOT TRUST THEM
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Post by questa on Aug 14, 2021 7:31:18 GMT
Alexander took his men into all that area...Persians, Turks and his regulars came down the passes and as a bonus (and not have to feed them back to their homes) he allotted agricultural land to his officers. This is why even today you can find light skinned, blue or green eyed clans in the area. The Moghuls came down to the now Afghan areas and right into India. They were fairly benign overlords and most of the things we think of as Indian are from the Moghul cultural era.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 14, 2021 10:04:07 GMT
Yes, but how much of the country was actually concerned by their rule? I suspect that remote areas never knew who was supposed to be the ruler.
The taliban should be much more successful this time because they are inheriting hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment abandoned by the Americans and the regular Afghan authorities. I already saw the report from Kandahar where they were proudly displaying the dozens and dozens of new police cars that they have just obtained.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2021 10:07:42 GMT
The word Moghul is a colonial construct and should be not only banished from history but compensation be paid to someone by somebody for all the years it has been used by colonial powers (insert smiley). It should be Mughal which is derived from the Arabic and Persian for Mongol - from which that dynasty was derived, the antecedents being Timur and Genghis.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2021 10:09:31 GMT
Yes, but how much of the country was actually concerned by their rule? Which ruler?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 14, 2021 10:10:31 GMT
Any of them.
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Post by questa on Aug 14, 2021 10:24:23 GMT
I stand corrected, Mark. I thought the terms were interchangeable. Maybe because I was so enchanted by their architecture and other art forms that bloomed in the north of India during Mughal rule.
Edited to add that the descendants of Alexander's men are now in their own tribes and are called the Hazara. They follow Islam and put a high value on education for both genders. They are hard working and do most of the jobs in the corporate world. They have had centuries of persecution and are the bulk of the people seeking to come to Australia.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 14, 2021 10:57:10 GMT
Now that I live and in the Afghan/Sudanese/Somali neighbourhood of Paris (or rather I have watched them all settle in my neighbourhood), it is interesting to see how they adapt to life here. Actually, what seems to be the main factor holding them back are their smartphones, which drag them back into certain outdated attitudes. And here we had always believed that technology would make people more modern.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 15, 2021 13:46:16 GMT
Have the South Asian people moved on?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 16, 2021 1:11:43 GMT
"Kabul could fall within a month."
Understatement of the year?
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Post by lugg on Aug 16, 2021 18:57:04 GMT
It is absolutely heart rending today reading the latest news and viewing some of the videos at the airport . For me ...especially reading some of the postings by women. Some who are in absolute despair whilst some remain hopeful that maybe this Taliban might recognise the importance of Afghan women to the economy and future.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 16, 2021 19:44:29 GMT
Women are property to them. To do with as they want. That is their belief. They will not change and this thing that was said by a spokesman for them that they will not seek revenge, is debatable to put it mildly as well. But, whereas they now rule the whole country, which they didn't before, maybe, just maybe, if they wish to seek recognition from other nations, they may give the pretence of moderating their actions.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 18, 2021 18:53:41 GMT
Has there been any word from the EU?
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Post by bjd on Aug 18, 2021 19:30:45 GMT
Has there been any word from the EU? About what? Like everyone else, the French and Germans and Poles (and any others who participated in the war there over the past 20 years) have been evacuating nationals as well as some Afghans. I guess everyone is waiting to see what happens once the Taliban have taken over completely.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 18, 2021 20:03:09 GMT
As you may have noticed I am not a big EU fan.
But I would have thought that the spokesman/woman for one of the world’s biggest organisations of countries might have something to say on the situation. Maybe they have and I’ve missed it.
I was unaware that the French, Germans and Poles were in Afghanistan.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 18, 2021 22:10:51 GMT
You must have been having a nap, Mick. Here is the list of countries which participated in "Operation Enduring Freedom" which just stopped enduring.
1 Afghanistan
2 Albania
3 Australia
4 Armenia
5 Azerbaijan
6 Bangladesh
7 Bulgaria
8 Belgium
9 Bosnia and Herzegovina
10 Canada
11 People's Republic of China
12 Republic of the Congo
13 Cyprus
14 Czech Republic
15 Denmark
16 Egypt
17 Estonia
18 France
19 Georgia
20 Germany
21 Greece
22 Hungary
23 India
24 Iran
25 Ireland
26 Italy
27 Japan
28 Kuwait
29 Kyrgyzstan
30 Latvia
31 Lithuania
32 North Macedonia
33 Malaysia
34 Montenegro
35 Netherlands
36 New Zealand
37 Norway
38 Oman
39 Pakistan
40 Poland
41 Portugal
42 Qatar
43 Romania
44 Russia
45 Slovakia
46 Slovenia
47 South Korea
48 Spain
49 Sudan
50 Sweden
51 Switzerland
52 Tajikistan
53 Thailand
54 Turkey
55 Turkmenistan
56 United Arab Emirates
57 Ukraine
58 United Kingdom
59 United States
60 Uzbekistan
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Post by questa on Aug 18, 2021 23:33:22 GMT
60 countries, all with intelligence gathering capabilities but no-one saw this coming? Did the reports fall down the back of the 'fridge again?
Or did the young girl with her Nobel Peace prize lull the world into thinking that everything is going to change in Afghanistan now?
"Afghanistan" is not a country but a collection of tribes - Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz, Sadat and others. They have been warring amongst themselves for centuries and the warlords come and go. Territorial boundaries change and loyalties with them. Bring in an external threat and the tribes will form alliances to meet the threat but after the outsiders quit and depart, as they do eventually, the tribes renew their in-fighting.
As usual US and her vassals jumped into another local war which resulted in the World Trade Centre tragedy and open war for 20+years. So many deaths and all for nothing now. I just hope that the peoples of the North West Frontier mountains and valleys can learn to live peacefully with each other and reject fanatics.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 19, 2021 6:56:00 GMT
Of course you only hear of the US and UK participating.
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Post by mossie on Aug 19, 2021 7:24:04 GMT
Questa has it right.
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Post by fumobici on Aug 19, 2021 21:00:19 GMT
I had an interesting talk with a friend who did a tour in Afghanistan as an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force. He says that any of the brighter grunts like him on the ground could probably have predicted that the western financed Afghan army would melt away at the first whiff of having to stand up as a force. The "intelligence failure" of not predicting the collapse of the existing government was really a systemic failure: you'll get nowhere within the military by telling your superiors what they don't want to hear, even if it's the plain obvious truth. Career suicide. Thus the only people who actually know what's happening at ground level not only won't be listened to, they won't be asked, and if they offer that unpopular truth unbidden will be punished for it. I doubt this dynamic is unique to the Americans or coalition forces there. Any rigidly hierarchical institution like a military will be prone suffer the same failures as failing in this way is the path of least resistance for every individual within that type of hierarchy. Nobody wants the truth if it comes at a cost to tell it up the chain.
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Post by questa on Aug 19, 2021 23:53:27 GMT
"Losing face" is the main thread that runs through Asian culture, and causing someone to lose face the worst social thing one must avoid. It is often called "keeping Father happy" i.e. Don't ever give your superior bad news or criticism
So any failures or difficulties in planning or executing of strategies never get reported and any Western involvement is hampered by lack of accurate intelligence and planning.
As Fumobici has described above, it is not just a one-sided trait but when all the various factions maintain the obvious untruth as fact, it doesn't take long for confusion to set in. Here the tribal groups could succeed as they fought in smaller self-planning groups and only referred higher up for major offensives. With the added advantage of the topography and knowledge of the tribal characteristics it was always going to be another Vietnam ending.
Please Generals, learn by your mistakes. Listen to the cooks and cleaners and boots on the ground fighters. Reward them for what they suggest, even if you have to suck up valid criticism. No more "Stupid War" # lll.
Fumo...did we know each other in a previous life?
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Post by bjd on Aug 20, 2021 8:41:05 GMT
What Fumo says is exactly what I read in a Guardian article recently. Those on the ground knew what was going on, but the further up the military hierarchy the information went, the more it was diluted and the less taken into account. Of course, by the time anything was given to the politicians who could make decisions, there was just empty air, with each general appointed to Afghanistan (or elsewhere I guess ) hoping to burnish his career credentials during his short tour of duty.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 20, 2021 15:13:28 GMT
Just to let everybody know what France has done over the years, the French sent troops to Afghanistan at the end of 2001, both the NATO mission and the US mission. In 2010, it was the 4th largest foreign force in the country. France also maintained naval forces in the Indian Ocean.
France pulled its final troops out in 2014. It suffered 89 deaths over the years.
In recent days, it has operated 3 flights so far to evacuate French nationals, but most of the passengers have been Afghan (also some Irish, Dutch and Kenyans).
None of this is glorious, but at least an attempt is being made to help.
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