It’s sad how American media carry forward the establishment’s line that it’s a surprise that Afghanistan is quickly falling to the Taliban.
I suppose that, to some degree, it refutes the long-term establishment line that Afghanistan was being turned into a modern “democratic republic” with a military that could control it into a Westphalian-style “state” – but, anyone who noticed what was going on knew that the Taliban had figured out, early on, how to prevent that by embedding people in the military and government. It takes remarkably few resources and it works pretty well – ask the Vietnamese who infiltrated Hue before the Tet Offensive. I was surprised, for a while, that the Taliban never tried a Tet-style attack, but that was because I didn’t estimate their patience. They knew they could just wait the US out, then roll up their country, again. That is exactly what has happened.
The news is full of stories about “Major town in Afghanistan falls to Taliban.” Then “7 major towns in Afghanistan fall to Taliban.” etc. I’ve lost count – but the reality on the ground is that the US had given up on its stupid “clear and hold” strategy and was doing Vietnam-style “search and destroy” missions from safe bases out in the back country. So, based on satellite and cell phone intercepts, some bunch of imperial troops would saddle up in helicopters and ride out and kill someone that someone had told someone was a Taliban leader, and head home for dinner. That’s the “clear” part. The “hold” part was omitted.
[nyt]
Taliban Overrun 3 More Provincial Capitals, Increasing Pressure on Kabul
Local officials said insurgents had flooded Pul-i-Khumri and Faizabad in the north, and Farah in western Afghanistan, making it 9 fallen cities in five days.
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan forces essentially collapsed in three more provincial capitals on Tuesday, adding to an already alarming drumbeat of Taliban victories around the country and effectively cutting off the main highway connecting the country’s capital with northern Afghan provinces.
Oh, the NYT counts it as nine, this morning. C’mon, guys, so what? Insurgent wars are often a matter of momentum and the Taliban have it. You can be pretty sure that everyone north of Pul-i-Khumri is pondering their options and trying to figure out whether to run or sit it out. It should surprise nobody that the Afghan military collapsed – it was a Potempkin military all along. For all that I complain about US “defense” expenditures, I do agree that building a modern military is incredibly expensive and, if that’s what you want, that what you have to do. Afghanistan never had the money or interest or control to build a modern military. Their economy is too small, and besides, it was blown up by the Soviets and then the US. Why would anyone build a modern military when they’ve just seen their nation crushed like a grape by 2 super-powers in succession? It’d just lose anyway. And, now, they see that modern militaries lose to insurgencies, just like the US and USSR did – so, why bother? Of course populations don’t think like that, as a whole, but the general trend would reasonably be a bit defeatist.
There are “contested districts” around Kandahar and Kabul, which means that the populations of those cities will be thinking about how to adjust their politics. The Taliban, by the way, aren’t stupid. I saw a photo from Kunduz of a police control-point flying a Taliban flag. That sends a message, “there is a new sheriff in town” that’s unmistakeable. Everyone who sees that will begin to adjust their politics.
Everyone, that is, except the US.
Less widely propagated news is: [military]
The United States has sent B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships to Afghanistan in a bid to stop Taliban insurgents who are marching towards three key cities.
The B-52s are flying into Afghanistan from an airbase in Qatar, hitting targets around Kandahar, Herat, and Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, sources told The Times.
Oh, look! When we’re losing, it’s time to do some crimes against humanity – “area bombing” – which is all B-52s do. How incredibly stupid: we’ve lost, and withdrawn, and still are trying to bomb the Taliban into submission – which is exactly what manifestly did not work for the last 20 years. Why would anyone expect it to accomplish anything, now? These idiots in Washington are pretending they are too stupid to understand what losing a war means. It means you stop fighting and start negotiating.
Meanwhile, China is negotiating with the Taliban. [counterpunch]
On July 28, 2021, in the Chinese city of Tianjin, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a visiting delegation from Afghanistan. The leader of the delegation was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the co-founder of the Taliban and head of its political commission. The Taliban has been making significant territorial gains as the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan. During the meeting, China’s Wang Yi told Mullah Baradar that the U.S. policy in the Central Asian country has failed, since the United States had not been able to establish a government that is both stable and pro-Western.
As they say in Washington, “Oh, look, the adults have entered the room.”
Unlike the US, China actually has interests in Afghanistan. They share a (short) border and Tajikstan’s stability is also a concern. The Chinese aren’t concerned if there is a government that is “stable and pro-western” – they will settle for “stable.” They’re pragmatic people.
Presumably these war crimes get chalked up in the “Biden” column.
Potemkin, not Potempkin.
It is a bit of a surprise how fast it is. I had thought that the Taliban would wait until the US had pulled out for fear that a quick offense would draw the US back in.
The US had been negotiating with the Taliban. Once Trump declared there would be a full US withdraw the Taliban stopped negotiating. The only thing the US can do now is show the Taliban that there is territory that will be too dangerous to take. I don’t know enough about the situation on the ground to have any idea if it will work.
The funny thing is that China has been treating Muslims in China so badly that Afganistan would be hostile. Except that the US has made itself such an enemy that they are probably willing to be neutral to each other.
I like your description of the “clear and hold” strategy, especially how the US can do the “clear” part, but not the “hold” part.
To give “credit” where it is due though, I must say that the US military has performed spectacularly well not only at the clear, but also with the hold part of the strategy in it’s continuing operations in North America from 1776 until the present.
Anyone who bothered to look at Afghanistan’s history — or the history of the USA’s attempts at “nation building” — was pointing out even before the USAan invasion that what we’re seeing would happen: whatever areas Western observers might imagine were under the control of a USA-backed government would fall to the Taliban within months of a USAan withdrawal. The mainstream media (MSM) have ignored the evidence since before the invasion started.
The MSM have had a long history of kowtowing and shilling for whoever is in power. I first noticed it with the Vietnam War. We discovered that not only had the USA government been blatantly lying all those years, but that the MSM had knowingly reported those lies as fact. But the same thing has happened again and again. In one respect I’m a little like the Fox News fans: I don’t trust the MSM to report the truth when the truth would make the powers that be (US government, local police, etc.) uncomfortable.
I may not be an atheist, but I am definitly a skeptic.
I’m going to go a step further and boggle at the claims that state that the Taliban is taking over, there is a sodding reason that the nickname of the president of Afghanistan is The Mayor of Kabul. Anything outside those districts was only under control by the US (there never was a functional Afghan army, just private militaries getting free training and toys) as long as they could point a gun at the area.
Who Cares@#5:
Anything outside those districts was only under control by the US (there never was a functional Afghan army, just private militaries getting free training and toys) as long as they could point a gun at the area.
Exactly. It’s very much like the situation in Vietnam, in which the US pretended the Diem regime was not a corrupt house of cards that would fall the second someone poked it hard.
In Afghanistan, I knew it was all a joke when a veteran friend of mine told me about guarding opium poppy fields for Warlord A, against Warlord B. Naturally, I asked “no central government?”
The sole purpose that the Washington establishment kept us in a hopeless situation for so long is because a lot of very wealthy, very politically-powerful sociopaths (Dick Cheney types) were making big fortunes off selling supplies to the military. It’s why we blew up Libya, have been waging a brutal war against Syria and have been supplying the Saudis with help against the poor people of Yemen. It’s all about war profiteering. Period. If Afghanistan had had significant oil supplies we’d still be fighting there, just as we have propped up the hopeless government of Iraq. Our oil companies want their oil. And we’re staying in Syria because it has some oil, besides the war profiteering aspect. It’s why we’ve waged a brutal, criminal covert war against Venezuela: Oil. If we ever invade Venezuela, it will be because the war profiteers and sociopathic oil company execs think they can boost their income and persuade gullible people that the invasion and occupation are necessary for … something. Fighting socialism/communism/Nazism/atheism/lgbt rights/feminism/wokeism/critical race theoryism … choose your right-wing lie du jour.
Marcus @6:
Is that part of the “war on drugs”?
“War, on drugs” more like…
Not just the USA (well, mainly; it has a lapdog).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/afghanistan-asks-australia-for-support/100369898
and lest we get too “partisan” (not that this would happen here) just remember that this is yet another clusterf%$# inherited by the saintly Peanut Farmer Democrat from small town George. I count Jimmy to be one of the worst presidents in our history (along with the inexecrable Woodrow Wilson, of course).
inherited FROM of course.
johnson catman@#8:
Is that part of the “war on drugs”?
It’s the “war over drugs” I think.
It’s related – if this topic interests you I really recommend Adam Curtis’ documentary Bitter Lake. Since it’s BBC property, they try to keep it from being uploaded to the tubes, but you can find it if you look around. Curtis walks through the near-term history of Afghanistan and a bit about how the Americans fucked the place up in the 50s and never stopped wanting to “fix” it into a little model capitalist consumer society. Which is like trying to turn a mink into a woodchuck.
Ah, here:
wsierichs@#7:
It’s why we blew up Libya, have been waging a brutal war against Syria and have been supplying the Saudis with help against the poor people of Yemen.
Syria and Iraq were about oil. That’s why the whole “we must stop ISIS” meme came out – ISIS was pumping and selling oil and it was screwing up the prices and the Saudis did not approve.
@wsierichs(#7):
Lybia wasn’t about the oil. It was mainly two things. The French complaining that Gaddafi was starting to undercut their influence in the area. And the need for Hillary to look though on the world stage, there was a reason that she and not Obama was the one getting out of that plane to her uttering the US version of Veni Vidi Vici, that is We came, We Saw, He died. I’m not joking about that, one of the reasons that Gaddafi died was because Hillary was considered to be to inexperienced and too soft on US adversaries and she needed a shoring up of that weak point in the run up of the 2016 election (which as we all have found out to our detriment didn’t work).
The United States has sent B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships to Afghanistan in a bid to stop Taliban insurgents who are marching towards three key cities.
The Taliban agreed with Trump’s envoys not to attack US forces during their withdrawal by the end of May 2021 if the USA did not attack them. Afghan forces were fair game.
So far the US has broken its word on the date of withdrawal, attacks on Taliban forces who have not attacked US Forces and, if you read comments from senior US military officials, the withdrawal is more a “let’s relocate just outside Afghanistan so we can attack while pretending we are not there” than an actual withdrawal from the conflict.
Soon the Taliban may not believe US promises. Bloody hell.
Argh! I have not seen this on other than Sputnik but it’s usually accurate about this type of thing.
The US Department of Defense revealed on Thursday that it will be sending approximately 3,000 US troops to Afghanistan as part of the branch’s efforts to assist in the departure of diplomats and other American civilians in the country.
This is going to improve relations between the USA and the Taliban.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202108121083591848-us-will-send-3000-troops-to-afghanistan-to-assist-in-departure-of-embassy-staff-pentagon-reveals/
The US Department of Defense revealed on Thursday that it will be sending approximately 3,000 US troops to Afghanistan as part of the branch’s efforts to assist in the departure of diplomats and other American civilians in the country.
Maybe they can stage a “last helicopter out” photo-op.
It gets worse. Canada has some special forces either on stand-by or enroute to help evacuate the Canadian embassy if needed.
Canadian foreign policy seems inspired by drunken idiots.
Well, one would need prescience to determine it would be best to “assist in the departure of diplomats and other American civilians” (bugger locals such as translators!) before withdrawing the troops, right?
The Taliban take Kabul, president flees country. Countries are making emergency evacuations of diplomats and embassy staff. The US is evacuating aid workers. Very much a last helicopter out of Saigon situation.
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops-intl-08-15-21/index.html
That was way faster then I had considered and I thought there was a fair chance the president could hold onto Kabul and a region around it. Biden really messed up with this. Removing US forces was never going to be a happy situation but had to be done at some point. The quick total occupation by the Taliban is a disaster, both for Afghanistan and the US.
As bad as this is, I don’t see a better option for Biden and America. An open-ended occupation? Ugg. I would have preferred a rescue scenario where we give visas, transport, and housing, education, etc., to anyone who wants to leave there to America.
Just ugg.
How did “Biden really messed this up”? Any President would have seen the same situation during the inevitable pullout.
Here’s an item: by not evacuating those who needed evacuating before the troops’ withdrawal.
John: Fair enough. I am guessing they still believed, contrary to all logic and evidence, that there would be more time.
The US and UK pretty much always abandon our local collaborators when we leave, and only reluctantly reverse course if forced to by public opinion. It’s a very well established pattern. It’s not because we believe there will be more time to save them, it’s because we don’t give a shit. Hell, we barely give a shit about our own service members…