Afghanistan - mission accomplished?

[slogen51]

Saw the harrowing images on the BBC last night of the C-17 crammed with people inside and people clinging to the outside as it taxied along

Pure panic.

How is Biden saying there is ' absolutely no parallel with Saigon'

I never thought I would say this but Biden is worse than Trump - he is trying to rewrite history and say the US did not make any commitments to the people of Afghanistan - that is a lie. He virtually accused the Afghan people of being cowards in the face of the Taliban.

The US has no interest in Afghanistan because they believe AQ has been defeated and Afghanistan is not an oil exporting country so who cares what happens to the human rights of 50% of the population.

If you make a commitment and say you will ' stand shoulder to shoulder ' then that should mean something.

[pg1610]

the US are not going to be sending in C-17s to collect CH-47s. They basically will re-equip the Taliban Air Force.

They'll either leave Kabul by other means (Pakistan is well within range of a Chinook), or be destroyed by departing US troops. That being said, there is very little the Taliban could do with any US aircraft that might remain - even if they managed to operate it, spares will not be forthcoming.

Iran has managed to keep F5/F14 etc flying for decades after spares source dried up, I am sure if the Taliban government wanted to keep these aircraft/helicopters flying they would find a way,

[pg1610]

Saw the harrowing images on the BBC last night of the C-17 crammed with people inside and people clinging to the outside as it taxied along

I thought these were two different flights ? with the one with the reported 600-800 people inside departing a good amount of time before the video emerged of the flight with the crowds running alongside it,

With regards to this particular one, the flight crew did the only thing they could in getting the aircraft into the air, they had no idea if any of these people on the outside were armed or not and whilst I am pretty sure there would have been security on board, had somebody manged to get a door open(very unlikely its not a Hollywood movie) and been carrying an explosive of some sort the carnage would have been appalling .

[warhawk121]

Just reading a rather depressing article in the paper

" Mission Unaccomplished"

Basically proposing that the modernizing Government propped up by American and British forces will not survive a year after American and British forces withdraw.

The Afghan army, trained by coalition forces, is fleeing across the border to Tajikistan or back to their families.

Bagram airbase has closed according to the papers - is that correct?

President Biden referred to Afghanistan as the forever war and since the withdrawal according to the Times the Taliban have already captured more than a quarter of the country's district centres.

Basically Afghanistan will become a new safe haven for IS so how long will the British Embassy exist in Kabul?

(President George W Bush is 75 today - he thought the war was won in two months with technology)

“Basically proposing that the modernizing Government propped up by American and British forces will not survive a year after American and British forces withdraw.”

Make that one month.....

I can’t believe that new equipment - A-29s and secondhand UH-60s have recently been delivered.

i think that Afghanistan was an unwinnable conflict. it felt like the minority of afghans wanted peace but the majority wanted to maintain the status quo.
to be honest i feel like the ANA and even the ANP would never have fought for their country. the reason being Afghanistan has never been a centralized country to my knowledge its always been the case that the afghan people with fight for their tribes/families rather than a flag as we do.

as to afghan becoming a safe haven fr IS i think that's probably a given, which is a bad thing.

and to be honest i think the reason the Taliban too the capital and DC's was that they never left and just blended into the civilian populace waiting for the draw down to happen. then re-appear en mass just as they did.

[Col Nago]

as to afghan becoming a safe haven fr IS i think that's probably a given, which is a bad thing.

The Taliban really didn't like IS and what it stood for - the Taliban don't like many folk! As for IS, these days they are pretty much fractured and non existent in terms of a meaningful organisation, just like Al-Qaeda (the latter never called themselves that - the US intelligence agencies came up with that tag because the group didn't have a name). A new terrorist organisation might appear in Afghanistan in the future, but we'll see...

[CHINOOKER]

Afghanistan has always been a country that couldn’t be “conquered” so to speak! The British tried it in the 1800’s and more recently the Russians, who lost many lives fighting the Mujahideen in the 80’s…..think they were there for 9 or so years!
With regard to the Afghan Army/Airforce etc, yes it seems to be a total capitulation by them to the Taliban…..especially as the Afghan forces numbered around 350,000 and the Taliban somewhere between 75-80,000. However, i saw in an interview recently by a former UK military person, that the ordinary Afghan “foot soldier” there simply treated being in the army etc, as just a job! In his words, if you were training say a group of 30….10 would be mostly “asleep”….10 would be disinterested and the remaining 10 would turn out as reasonable soldiers…some of those going on to be in Special Forces etc! No wonder then, that when a dedicated and deeply ideological group like the Taliban come into town, the average “joe soldier” does a runner!

With regard to the final withdrawal from Kabul, once the “humanitarian airlift” is complete, i would assume that expensive assets such as Apache’s etc and some specialist equipment/spares may be airlifted out and what can’t be flown out by there own means will simply be destroyed! Unfortunately I am old enough to remember the US getting out of Vietnam and watching on the news perfectly good Huey’s etc, landing on aircraft carriers off Saigon and once unloaded, being pushed overboard in order to make space for the next incoming aircraft! Wouldn’t surprise me in the least that in the next few days footage will emerge of current assets in Kabul being destroyed

[Typeflyer]

the US are not going to be sending in C-17s to collect CH-47s. They basically will re-equip the Taliban Air Force.

They'll either leave Kabul by other means (Pakistan is well within range of a Chinook), or be destroyed by departing US troops. That being said, there is very little the Taliban could do with any US aircraft that might remain - even if they managed to operate it, spares will not be forthcoming.

Iran has managed to keep F5/F14 etc flying for decades after spares source dried up, I am sure if the Taliban government wanted to keep these aircraft/helicopters flying they would find a way,

IIRC the North Vietnamese flew F-5s, A-37s, UH-1s, CH-47s and C-130s for some time. Expect to see the Chinese greasing their way in.

[Ewart]

Interesting article about the collapse of the Afghan Security Forces

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... pse-504977

[warhawk121]

as to afghan becoming a safe haven fr IS i think that's probably a given, which is a bad thing.

The Taliban really didn't like IS and what it stood for - the Taliban don't like many folk! As for IS, these days they are pretty much fractured and non existent in terms of a meaningful organisation, just like Al-Qaeda (the latter never called themselves that - the US intelligence agencies came up with that tag because the group didn't have a name). A new terrorist organisation might appear in Afghanistan in the future, but we'll see...

I stand corrected on that, it does seem to be a recurring theme with US intelligence sources, (maybe not just the US) of applying a label to things. thing is giving something a label gives them publicity they want.

[Cole]

it really is incredible how the work of Allied forces over the past 20 years, is basicly rendered null over the case of a week.

[slogen51]

It's incredible what has happened in a couple of days

Some encouraging, probably not the right word, noises coming from the Taliban press conference. It is probably way too early but it might not be a total disaster for the Afghani people. All the work the western allies have put in to try and build a modern society means that, according to media outlets, the taliban are taking over a very different country from when they last had control in the 90s. The genie is out of the bottle.

[raptor9]

Had lunch today with a retired Cambridge Prof, with Afghan experience, who told me that he had heard that the reason morale was so poor in the Afghan Army was because they hadn't been paid for weeks, and when they see their President departing for safer pastures [presumably with lots of the country's cash,] then it didn't give them much reason to put up a fight!!. To believe what the Taliban say is to show a bit of naivety in my opinion!. Time will tell.

[slogen51]

Didn't say I did believe them but it is what it is - you can still be hopeful if you like?

[raptor9]

Slogen, the 'naivety in respect of the belief in the way the Taliban are going to conduct themselves was directed to the world in general, not you. As you say, we can hope. Regards.

[STN RAMP RAT]

US drone technology has come on a long way in 20 years and you never know when someone in Creech is going to press the “game over” button for someone on the ground. Arguably if they had had armed drones 20+ years ago there would have been no 9/11 as Osama would have been executed, as it was all they could do was look at him. If I recall it was that incident which prompted arming the drones.

[Blackcat1]

Terrible scenes coming from Kabul this morning . I quote a newspaper " Distressed mothers throw babies over barbed wire at Kabul airport, while grinning Taliban gun down protesters" . What a bunch of b******s.

[colp]

I'm quite surprised that we haven't heard anything from Trump on this, unless i've missed it! In all this chaos i'm actually thinking he may have handled things differently, although I still don't like the bloke.

[pg1610]

I'm quite surprised that we haven't heard anything from Trump on this, unless i've missed it! In all this chaos i'm actually thinking he may have handled things differently, although I still don't like the bloke.

He made a statement mid week basically blaming Joe Biden for this mess (now that`s a surprise)

[colp]

I'm quite surprised that we haven't heard anything from Trump on this, unless i've missed it! In all this chaos i'm actually thinking he may have handled things differently, although I still don't like the bloke.

He made a statement mid week basically blaming Joe Biden for this mess (now that`s a surprise)

Ah did he, yes no surprise I guess ha ha!

[Blackcat1]

Im not overly fussed on creepy Joe ( as he's known as by a lot of Americans I know )