Afghanistan

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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: The Afghanistan Thread

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


US commander of international forces in Afghanistan
Air strike on a hospital in the northern city of Kunduz
was a mistake



Gen John Campbell said that the US would never intentionally target a protected medical facility

Hmmmmm


.
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kmich
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Re: The Afghanistan Thread

Post by kmich »

3167V8u-W-Y
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: The Afghanistan Thread

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

kmich wrote:.

3167V8u-W-Y

.

President Obama called the chief of Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday
to apologize for the bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan that killed doctors and patients



That was the right gesture

“When the United States makes a mistake, we own up to it, we apologize,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters.

..

In addition to the apology, White House officials said Mr. Obama had promised a “transparent, thorough and objective accounting” of the incident, and told Dr. Liu that he would make any changes necessary to ensure that such incidents were less likely in the future.


.
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YMix
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by YMix »

Pentagon spent $150 million on luxury villas for employees in Afghanistan

The Pentagon is under fire again for excessive spending in Afghanistan. Following reports of the $43 million gas station, a government watchdog says nearly $150 million was spent on villas, meals, and security guards for a “handful” of employees.

On Thursday, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released a letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in which SIGAR chief John F. Sopko asked for more information about $150 million that was authorized by the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), a small division of the defense department charged with stabilizing the economies of Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]
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noddy
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by noddy »

The Germans spent 60 million building a 10 thousand capacity cricket stadium, they managed to squeeze 30 thousand into it.

https://twitter.com/samishinwari45/stat ... 6859139076

Image

they have a great team, im hoping it can normalise itself in the international cricket schedule.
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kmich
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by kmich »

We Lost the War in Afghanistan. Get Over It.
After 18 years of war, thousands of lives lost, and hundreds of billions of dollars squandered, the United States accomplished precisely nothing.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

kmich wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:47 pm We Lost the War in Afghanistan. Get Over It.
After 18 years of war, thousands of lives lost, and hundreds of billions of dollars squandered, the United States accomplished precisely nothing.
Bush brought back the poppy/opioid industry which the Taliban had eradicated, so really a net negative.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by kmich »

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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Bad link
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by kmich »

Sorry, worked earlier. Hopefully fixed:

The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

kmich wrote: Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:01 pm Sorry, worked earlier. Hopefully fixed:

The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war
Thank you. Kinda what I thought, but did not expect so much high level confirmation.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by noddy »

Yeh, some things seem very obvious from the outside, its nice to get confirmation.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by kmich »

As Clausewitz explains, war “is controlled by its political object,” which “will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and makes its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail.”  So, a meandering, changing, unclear, and incoherent formulation of the "political object" of war will lead to confused operations down to the most basic levels.  This has unfortunately been frequently the case in our military operations since WW2.

In addition, the lack of continuity of military experience in country due to rapid in and out rotations during the Afghanistan war has made the problem worse.   Each new officer deployed arrives with a set of optimistic mission expectations, frequently becomes disillusioned, but then moves on to turn over the "mission" to their fresh, confident relief.   The "punch your ticket," report progress if you value your career, and keep your darkness to yourself phenomena that was typical during Vietnam.  Nothing is learned and the beat goes on. 

The other, really difficult part of this the need to redeem sacrifices.  If you go to war, have buddies killed, have yourself and/or your friends wounded,  accepting that the mission was a pointless failure places you in such a dark place that it is almost impossible to live with.    This has been the struggle the Vietnam vets I know have dealt with and I expect the same would be true with our 21st century military actions.

The context of these "Afghanistan Papers" and the "Pentagon Papers" of  Vietnam are radically different.    The "Pentagon Papers" were met with significant controversy and antiwar sentiment, while these documents on Afghanistan, for those who will even know about them, with a collective shrug.    People adapt, and we have adapted to our semi-permanent, ongoing wars.   Unlike Vietnam, with our contemporary professional military and smaller scale combat deployments, few people are directly effected by our wars.   So shrug your shoulders, "support the troops," and move on, I suppose.  Unfortunately, functional, representative governments  typically don't fail due some dramatic military putsch or coup, but by a deteriorating cycle fostered by lack of accountability comfortably snuggled in the bed of the indifference and cynicism of a divided population.
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Re: Afghanistan

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kmich wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:40 pm As Clausewitz explains, war “is controlled by its political object,” which “will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and makes its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail.”  So, a meandering, changing, unclear, and incoherent formulation of the "political object" of war will lead to confused operations down to the most basic levels.  This has unfortunately been frequently the case in our military operations since WW2.

In addition, the lack of continuity of military experience in country due to rapid in and out rotations during the Afghanistan war has made the problem worse.   Each new officer deployed arrives with a set of optimistic mission expectations, frequently becomes disillusioned, but then moves on to turn over the "mission" to their fresh, confident relief.   The "punch your ticket," report progress if you value your career, and keep your darkness to yourself phenomena that was typical during Vietnam.  Nothing is learned and the beat goes on. 

The other, really difficult part of this the need to redeem sacrifices.  If you go to war, have buddies killed, have yourself and/or your friends wounded,  accepting that the mission was a pointless failure places you in such a dark place that it is almost impossible to live with.    This has been the struggle the Vietnam vets I know have dealt with and I expect the same would be true with our 21st century military actions.

The context of these "Afghanistan Papers" and the "Pentagon Papers" of  Vietnam are radically different.    The "Pentagon Papers" were met with significant controversy and antiwar sentiment, while these documents on Afghanistan, for those who will even know about them, with a collective shrug.    People adapt, and we have adapted to our semi-permanent, ongoing wars.   Unlike Vietnam, with our contemporary professional military and smaller scale combat deployments, few people are directly effected by our wars.   So shrug your shoulders, "support the troops," and move on, I suppose.  Unfortunately, functional, representative governments  typically don't fail due some dramatic military putsch or coup, but by a deteriorating cycle fostered by lack of accountability comfortably snuggled in the bed of the indifference and cynicism of a divided population.
This Japanese doctor had a handle on how to fix Afghanistan.

U_gxTsT6khg

Sadly he was murdered the other day

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/worl ... -dead.html

‘He Showed Us Life’: Japanese Doctor Who Brought Water to Afghans Is Killed
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Afghanistan

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The United States left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.

[...]

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield, about an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, a small group of looters ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, Afghan military officials said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5 ... icials-say
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

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Re: Afghanistan

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Let me edit this to be a bit more coherent: I understand it's free political points to use the situation to attack President Biden for how poorly the Afghan withdrawal is going. Still, these articles and opinion pieces detailing what the perfect exit would look like if only they were in charge are very disingenuous.

I have no doubt that certain details here or there would be different, and maybe it would be slighter better with this person or that person at the helm; but in the grand scheme of things whoever pulled out of Afghanistan was going to take it on the chin. That would be the case even if this sentiment captured by Politico is correct:

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Re: Afghanistan

Post by noddy »

once again their is a situation their are no good outcomes, its 20 years or more of blame games and partisan finger pointing.

we should have just carpet bombed al queda, and slapped the taliban a bit, then if they rebuilt, done the same thing again.

thats all we should do from now on - the only meaningful victory was to stop it being used as a base for terrorism against the west, and in the current post ISIS world, its all bit of a joke really.

the Taliban are probably good guys again now, relatively.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

I think there is some proper finger pointing here, but it likely isn't these last two administrations no matter how lowly one thinks of them and their policies.

First and foremost we've had three administration discuss an exit of Afghanistan, the last two quite seriously. No one among the army or CIC or think tanks or any of the bureaucrats were prepared with an exit strategy. If anything, they opposed or defied it at every turn.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by noddy »

No arguments.

On a local politics level, Bush, Obama and the collective known colloquially as the "Millitary Industry Complex" have all sorts of questions to be answered.

However, we know they wont - the hot potato will land on Biden/Trump and the social media hot takes (tm) will be brain dead.

In my country, one of the commanders for our SAS units that has been there is being crucified for killing civillians and whatnot over his years - I cant help but feel he is just a pawn in a face saving game.

you send young men overseas to kill other young men for extended periods, for reasons that dont quite make sense and rules of engagement which only sound good in dinner parties, you get bad outcomes.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Which makes some of the spin even more outrageous.

Arguments that we haven't spent enough time, money and effort in Afghanistan.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Doc »

President Ghani just left Afghanistan. Taliban moving into Kabul.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Doc »

Doc wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 6:25 am
kmich wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:40 pm As Clausewitz explains, war “is controlled by its political object,” which “will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and makes its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail.”  So, a meandering, changing, unclear, and incoherent formulation of the "political object" of war will lead to confused operations down to the most basic levels.  This has unfortunately been frequently the case in our military operations since WW2.

In addition, the lack of continuity of military experience in country due to rapid in and out rotations during the Afghanistan war has made the problem worse.   Each new officer deployed arrives with a set of optimistic mission expectations, frequently becomes disillusioned, but then moves on to turn over the "mission" to their fresh, confident relief.   The "punch your ticket," report progress if you value your career, and keep your darkness to yourself phenomena that was typical during Vietnam.  Nothing is learned and the beat goes on. 

The other, really difficult part of this the need to redeem sacrifices.  If you go to war, have buddies killed, have yourself and/or your friends wounded,  accepting that the mission was a pointless failure places you in such a dark place that it is almost impossible to live with.    This has been the struggle the Vietnam vets I know have dealt with and I expect the same would be true with our 21st century military actions.

The context of these "Afghanistan Papers" and the "Pentagon Papers" of  Vietnam are radically different.    The "Pentagon Papers" were met with significant controversy and antiwar sentiment, while these documents on Afghanistan, for those who will even know about them, with a collective shrug.    People adapt, and we have adapted to our semi-permanent, ongoing wars.   Unlike Vietnam, with our contemporary professional military and smaller scale combat deployments, few people are directly effected by our wars.   So shrug your shoulders, "support the troops," and move on, I suppose.  Unfortunately, functional, representative governments  typically don't fail due some dramatic military putsch or coup, but by a deteriorating cycle fostered by lack of accountability comfortably snuggled in the bed of the indifference and cynicism of a divided population.
This Japanese doctor had a handle on how to fix Afghanistan.

U_gxTsT6khg

Sadly he was murdered the other day

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/worl ... -dead.html

‘He Showed Us Life’: Japanese Doctor Who Brought Water to Afghans Is Killed
I can't believe that YouTube suddenly restricted this video years after it was first put on Youtube after Afghanistan has fallen. There is no good reason to age restrict this outside of naked censorship.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Doc »

Why aren't they wearing masks?

Image
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Letting the Afghans own Afghanistan again is Biden’s singular presidential achievement.
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