US, NATO Outta Afghanistan 2021

[CBH99]

Wasn't there an opportunity to do something like this years ago, with the IIRC Northern Alliance?

There have been many articles written, by some very experienced folks far smarter than I, that suggested it should have been a CIA/SOF war from the beginning.

We were able to hire various warlords, at various times over the last 2 decades, to work with us - even the Haqqani network briefly. (Protecting/not attacking supplies coming in via highway from Pakistan, not attacking certain construction projects, etc).

I imagine you are correct, as the Northern Alliance would have been the ideal choice at the time if the strategy had been different.

It was immediately post 9-11, and America NEEDED to handle their business in a very public way. Osama Bin Laden was on the loose, the Taliban were supposedly protecting him, and America was seething for ‘Justice’.

Even if it was the more promising strategy, I don’t think it would have flown with the public. At the time, I believe the strategy needed to be seen as violent, big, and a very clear “F-You!” to the groups America needed to sort out.


The above is just my opinion, it isn’t backed up with any specific articles right now. But I do remember reading - over the years - that quietly ‘moulding and shaping’ Afghanistan using intelligence agencies and SOF was a strategy several senior people believed was the better option, but due to the ‘vibe of the west’ in the years following 9-11, it just wasn’t an option they could choose.

*Perhaps there is no military solution for Afghanistan, like Stoker Dave suggested. Truly. Graveyard of empires. If the Soviets, British, American led NATO haven’t been able to ‘tame it’… perhaps Dave and Colin are each onto something.

 

[FJAG]

The CIA and the SOF did a great job in the initial phase of the operation and were almost single-handedly responsible for bringing together the local ground forces with American air power to defeat the Taliban.

They were then left with two realities.

The first was the need to put together a stable government that could develop to resisting any future insurgency. In order to do that there was a perceived need to disassemble the existing warlord structure which a) formed the backbone of the anti-Taliban forces and b) formed the largest threat to a nascent national government. That process went slowly and failed dismally particulalry in the building of a stable and trustworthy national police force (a task assumed by Germany as part of the Bonn accord)

The second was the fact that the special forces were the darling of Donald Rumsfeld and seriously threatened the conventional US Army. The conventional army pushed hard to insert themselves as the primary managers of the Afghan operation. At the most critical time much of the SOF was diverted to the operation building for Iraq which left the conventional army (and NATO) to pick up almost all of the slack in Afghanistan. The conventional army took overall charge of Enduring Freedom which, in the aggregate, was a mission much more suited to Green SOF elements. Instead, while there were Green SOF forces in Afghanistan they were relegated more and more to Black (or at least darkish Green direct action) SOF missions while nation building and local security force building activities were off loaded to a hodge podge of conventional forces. The building of the ANA, for example, became a National Guard responsibility.

I tend to agree with Biden (and God help me ... Trump) in this regard. If after almost twenty years in the country, we can't get the Afghans to look after their own security then how long do we need to be there or is it just a futile effort? We complain about the fact that the ISI was backing the Taliban but in the same way, the CIA and ISI backed the Mujahedeen against the Soviets. It's a given that there will be interested parties involved in any such effort to see us fail. In the end, its what the Afghans want and are prepared to fight for that matters.

If nothing else, Afghanistan has taught us a valuable lesson. Our experiences with the Yugoslavian failed states made us think we could fix these things and, in large part Canada, restructured its military for that type of mission. The argument was made with respect to Iraq that the US left too soon. It stayed longer in Afghanistan but the result is not much better. If nothing else, we've learned that you can't fix every failed state by occupying it and spilling your blood on their soil for decades. We were in Afghanistan at a time where, while we suffered losses, our expeditionary force was never at risk of destruction. Equipped the way we are, we may not be so lucky the next time.

 

[suffolkowner]

The obsession with keeping Afghanistan intact as is may be the problem. Let the various ethnic groups join up with the neighbours they want to be with. Iran gets Herat, the Stan's get the Northern bits and the Pastun's form Pastunstan and then they can happily fight Pakistan for the rest of the NWF. Maybe the Balochs form their own country as well at some point.

I suggested that before but in the post WW2 world everyone seems to think the lines on the map are immutable even when logic suggests they shouldn't be. Pakistan may have opened a can of worms here, maybe we should just let them try to put the lid on it, although Pakistan may not survive it and as bad as Afghanistan and Pakistan are no the last thing I would like to see is a nuclear armed Al-Queda Pashtunstan. We were unwilling to commit the time and blood necessary to civilize the population. Gaul wasn't pacified in 20 years either

 

[OldSolduer]

I suggested that before but in the post WW2 world everyone seems to think the lines on the map are immutable even when logic suggests they shouldn't be. Pakistan may have opened a can of worms here, maybe we should just let them try to put the lid on it, although Pakistan may not survive it and as bad as Afghanistan and Pakistan are no the last thing I would like to see is a nuclear armed Al-Queda Pashtunstan. We were unwilling to commit the time and blood necessary to civilize the population. Gaul wasn't pacified in 20 years either

Alexander the Great couldn't take the Aghans either. And FWIW a nuke armed state with AQ in charge is beyond the pale. MAYBE we should be thinking about that, as I am sure some big brains are.

 

[Altair]

Maybe there is no 'military' solution to Afghanistan. I say that when the people of Afghanistan are tired of war, fighting, conflict, destruction and poverty, then maybe there will be an opportunity to help them build the society we all want for them.

These people have been fighting since Alexander the great was in the region.

If fighting and dying were an endurance sport the afghans would win gold every time.

 

[Brad Sallows]

maybe there will be an opportunity to help them build the society we all want for them.

Prize for deepest irony today.

 

[dapaterson]

I'm still waiting for the Afghanistan / Vietnam results (per Spy Magazine in 1989)

And I Also Shouldn't Just Embed Charts From 'Spy'

It's March Madness time, international division

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Blackadder1916]

At least they're not calling it Operation Frequent Wind 2. During the Pentagon press conference, the DOD spokesman was asked if the operation had a name and he replied that it did not.

Pentagon sending troops to Kabul to help evacuation of U.S. Embassy

A U.S. official says Kandahar "is in the process of falling."

www.cbsnews.com

Pentagon sending troops to Kabul to help evacuation of U.S. embassy​

The Pentagon is sending troops to Karzai International Airport in Kabul to help evacuate U.S. embassy as the Taliban continues its offensive in Afghanistan. A U.S. official told CBS News the Pentagon is sending in about 3,000 troops to help with the drawdown some staff at the embassy.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday that the embassy is not closing, and the U.S. will continue to operate consular services and special immigrant visa applications.

"This is not an abandonment," Price said. "This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal."

Price said the U.S. is going to a smaller smaller diplomatic presence, given the security siutaiton. Price said this is a contigency plan that the U.S. had been prepared.

In the past week, the Taliban has overtaken at least 10 provincial capitals and Kandahar City is "in the process of falling" according to a U.S. official.

President Joe Biden earlier this year announced all U.S. troops would withdraw by the end of August, but the U.S. would maintain a diplomatic presence.

 

[Altair]

Afghanistan: Major cities fall to Taliban amid heavy fighting

Militants now control many of Afghanistan's key regional cities, including Herat and Ghazni.

www.bbc.co.uk

According to the BBC, it's 11 capitals in 1 week.

Herat and Ghazni are significant though.

I'm guessing kandahar will fall shortly.

 

[Blackadder1916]

And the stampede begins.

UK and US send troops to aid evacuation from Afghanistan as Taliban advance

Pentagon aims to send in 3,000 soldiers to ‘aid reduction’ of nationals and Afghans with visas

www.theguardian.com

UK to send 600 troops to Afghanistan to aid evacuation as Taliban advance​

Up to 200 UK diplomats and soldiers to be evacuated as militants’ grip on country grows

The UK is to urgently send an extra 600 troops to Afghanistan this week to secure the speedy retreat of British diplomats, forces, UK passport holders and as many as 4,000 entitled Afghan personnel, as the Taliban advance towards Kabul.

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said the UK was relocating its embassy from the outskirts of the secure Green Zone to a potentially safer location closer to the centre of the capital.

As many as 200 UK diplomats and soldiers are being evacuated, but precise numbers are not being given. The US and other western governments are also accelerating plans for the evacuation of embassy staff amid fears over the Taliban’s remorseless advance across the country.

The US state department is expected to announce a parallel move to Britain’s – an evacuation of a “significant” number of employees from its embassy in Kabul, and will send extra military forces to help with the operation, according to three sources who spoke to Reuters.

The announcement came as Afghanistan’s second-largest city, Kandahar, was claimed by the Taliban and its third largest, Herat, fully fell to the militants. The group has now established a bridgehead within 95 miles (150km) of Kabul and its rapid advances leave the capital isolated from the rest of the country and facing a perilous threat as provincial capitals have toppled one after another in the past seven days.

. . . (more at link)

 

[OldSolduer]

And the stampede begins.

UK and US send troops to aid evacuation from Afghanistan as Taliban advance

Pentagon aims to send in 3,000 soldiers to ‘aid reduction’ of nationals and Afghans with visas

www.theguardian.com

Lets hope all the embassy staff of allied nations get out. I recall 1979 and the fall of the Shah of Iran - if you all know what I mean.

As for nations that are not allied with us or downright despise us - good luck.

 

[OldSolduer]

US sending 3K troops for partial Afghan embassy evacuation

Apparently Kandahar has fallen. Not good news at all but not unexpected.

Taliban take Kandahar, Herat in major Afghanistan offensive

 

[brihard]

Kandahar City has reportedly fallen, and there's video of ANSF fleeing the city- though with Ghazni also captured, I don't know where they'll go. KAF has not fallen yet so far as I can tell, but at this point it's just a matter of time. Consolidating on the city will take time, but they'll probably want to preserve their momentum and take advantage of panic at the airfield.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghanistan-kabul-kandahar-herat-special-forces-1.6139450

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Alex Hollings​

It’s Taliban Christmas!
** Correction on this - one Scan Eagle system includes 4 air platforms, so we’re looking at around $3 million rather than $12.
Despite picking my own nits, I stand by the below assertion.
Nah, I’m not arguing that we should have stayed, just that we probably should have had a plan for leaving.
This is old tech, but it’ll still prove valuable to their foreign buyers - and the same goes for a lot of the gear the Taliban will recover. Just like not having a plan to pull our terps and their families out, it’s not even about what we lose in Afghanistan today - it’s about what we lose in terms of foreign influence, technological advantage, and public perception for the next ten years.
It was time to go, yes. But we had twenty years to plan for this. It’s not all on Biden. There have been two Republicans and two Democrats in office through this conflict. If you think this has to do with political parties, you’re mistaken.

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[Altair]

Kandahar City has reportedly fallen, and there's video of ANSF fleeing the city- though with Ghazni also captured, I don't know where they'll go. KAF has not fallen yet so far as I can tell, but at this point it's just a matter of time. Consolidating on the city will take time, but they'll probably want to preserve their momentum and take advantage of panic at the airfield.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afghanistan-kabul-kandahar-herat-special-forces-1.6139450

dump uniforms in the nearest garbage and find a way to kabul.

 

[kkwd]

Canadian troops on the way to evacuate the embassy, or so an "official" says. Today will probably see confirmation or denial of this.

Canadian special forces will deploy to Afghanistan where Canadian embassy staff in Kabul will be evacuated before closing, a source familiar with the plan told The Associated Press.

Canada sending forces to close Afghan embassy: official

 

[CBH99]

I’m glad to see a flight of our Afghan interpreters & help land in Toronto. But it was too little, too late.

We even had the audacity to leave some of them right there at the airfield, along with their families, because of some outdated paperwork. Even if their families were good to go, they weren’t allowed to board if our contracted help had outdated documents.

How are we going to find these people, and their families now? How do we get them to Kabul with the Taliban controlling almost everywhere, and controlling more and more each day?

We ended our combat mission in 2011. It is now 2021. Ten years later, and we didn’t relocate these individuals during that time - our part of the agreement was that we would. And even now, heaven forbid we do the process slightly out of order…


Unless they were able to get themselves to Kabul prior to the Taliban seizing the travel routes, we can’t hold up our end of the bargain. Some of them may not have even known the urgency behind their situation in recent weeks, or have disappeared into the ether.

As much as I dislike Trudeau, it isn’t just his fault. We’ve had 10 years to do this. To do what we said we would do. And now we’ve left some of them to the wolves…

 

[dimsum]

We even had the audacity to leave some of them right there at the airfield, along with their families, because of some outdated paperwork. Even if their families were good to go, they weren’t allowed to board if our contracted help had outdated documents.

Where did you read that?

I'm not disputing, I just hadn't read that part anywhere (yet).

 

[CBH99]

Where did you read that?

I'm not disputing, I just hadn't read that part anywhere (yet).

I'll find the articles I read shortly and post them.

Sorry, I thought I had attached it, but was using my phone when I wrote that - not the most tech savvy person here.

‘The Taliban are knocking on the doors’: Suspended passport service the latest roadblock for former Afghan interpreters, staff trying to flee to Canada

A valid travel document is required for eligible Afghan interpreters and civilians who worked for the Canadian Forces to board a flight to Canada. But the shutdown of local services has meant they can’t get a passport.

www.thestar.com

_____


At least two groups of Taliban actually have access to ID's & fingerprints of our Afghan helpers, and are using laptops with special software to connect and identify them. One of these groups are already in Kabul going door-to-door, while there were unconfirmed reports of another using the same tactics in Herat. This next article refers to the group of Taliban in Kabul.

How did they get that information? Names, general locations, fingerprints, and a software program that can confirm connections between fingerprints and our helpers?

Corbella: It's our turn to help Afghan interpreters and workers who risked all for us

As the Taliban gains strength in Afghanistan, many Canadians who have worked with brave men and women in that troubled country are doing everything they can to help…

calgaryherald.com

_____


Here is the article that referred to at least one of our helpers who was at the airport, after being contacted and told to make his way to Kabul. His family had valid travel documents, however his passport was expired, and therefore the Afghan government forbid him to leave. Another had to debate whether he should leave his family behind, because they didn't have valid passports.

Just to make sure everybody is reminded of how insincere and stupid some of our folks at the top are - we are ALSO requiring them to show up to the airport with a valid Covid test, showing negative, dated within 3 days of arrival. Done at their own expense. (Do the people in charge of this know where Afghanistan is, and what it is actually like outside of the major cities? They don't exactly have a Shoppers Drug Mart around the corner they can pop into real quick...)

Afghans who helped Canada stranded at Kabul airport due to passport rule, group says - National | Globalnews.ca

About 20 interpreters and their families were unable to board flights to Canada, according to Afghan-Canadian Interpreters.

globalnews.ca

I know I'm going to sound like a broken record here folks, and I apologize. I know a lot of this will just be a repeat of my vent above. But the government ended our combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011, and in my opinion we should have relocated our helpers when we were withdrawing our troops and equipment. Instead we chose not to have a program all of these years, and here we are scrambling at the very last second to pull something together. What is the Taliban hadn't resurged the way they have? Would we ever have a program to uphold our end of the bargain?

When these brave and exceptionally helpful people stepped up to help NATO forces by cooking, helping with gate duty, outside security at embassies, translating and interpreting for us, and helping us understand the immediate 'lay of the land' that wasn't always visible to the western eye - they stepped up because they knew the Taliban were the bad guys, and had faith that they were helping the good guys. I don't think the contracts ever mentioned anything "Warning - relocation upon completion of Canadian operations may take 10+ years. Also may never happen. Have a Plan B."


I'll wrap up my rant here shortly, but just my remaining 0.02...

- If we can confirm that they were contracted by us during our operations there, get them on the plane and get them out. Period. Just get it f**king done. We can sort out their passport issue once they land here - you know, where we have passport offices, reliable communications & internet access, and their lives aren't literally being measured by an hour glass icon. We brought 20,000+ Syrian refugees over in the blink of an eye, and yet we can't bring over a few hundred Afghans who actually earned that flight by helping us?

- Drop the Covid test requirement. FFS. We can test them upon arrival, and make arrangements for them to stay in an isolation hotel if they do test positive. (Or something like that.) We will have to put them up in hotels or military bases anyway, we can just have a separate hotel/accommodation for those who test positive. Upon arrival, while sorting our accommodations, passport issues, visas, etc - we can get them all vaccinated. Not a big deal by any means.

(We still allowed international flights from Covid hotspot countries for pretty much the entire time our borders were apparently closed, no problem. Wouldn't want to offend vote-important ethnic groups such as the Chinese or the Indians. But again, heaven forbid we let one or two flights land & just deal with the Covid issue when/if it arises.)


I apologize for the above rant. I don't mean to sound dramatic or unreasonable, and by all means please PM me if I'm coming across differently than how I intend. But I feel like our government is representing us in the worst possible way right now. We gave them our word, we interviewed them, we literally shook their hands, and they were right beside us ducking behind mud-brick walls when we were in a TIC. I realize this doesn't lay all at Trudeau's feet, but even if we ignore the last decade of no action being taken on this - we've had a month of warning to get organized and prepared to get this done. I don't think the people in charge of this understand that the word 'Immediately' translates into 'Right The F**k Now'.


<Rant over, sorry guys>

 

[MilEME09]

Given the public relations of the taliban and China, I'd bet my life savings the taliban is being equipped by China, and maybe even trained.