jwb

Dunno about the president but from what i heard, which admittedly isn't much cause i don't have that much free time to research this ****, is that the intelligence projections expected the conflict to drag on a couple months at least. Every source I've seen has remarked on how quickly everything fell compared to what they were anticipating. Maybe the president was wise enough to foresee how botched this whole thing would be. Either way you can't tell me it's impossible to pull out from a country without doing it all at once so the whole place goes to **** in a matter of weeks. I can't see how you could think that level of chaos is not something we would want to mitigate.

Frownland

So we simultaneously had no idea this was going to happen and also could have easily prevented it?

I don't think that the transition will be easy for Afghanis but it's a condition we created to the point that I consider pulling out a form of mitigation in itself. I'm not denying that there's a cost to the scenario, I just think the benefits outweigh it. I'm of the mind that while it did turn chaotic faster than expected, the administration expected it to go that way more quickly than they made publicly clear.

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jwb

shrug

This is just lazy debate bro ****

I said from what i heard the projections didn't expect it to fall as quickly as it did. The likely reason it fell so quickly is because of the demoralizing aspect of a rapid pull out coupled with a new logistical burden on the afghan military that they were not at all prepared for. So yeah, looks like a botched job to me.

there's arguably a benefit to us. Relieving ourselves of the burden. But a benefit to afghanistan? Nah. I don't see it lol.

Frownland

I think it fell quickly because the puppet government we installed was weak and performative without trillions of dollars of guns behind it.

The elimination of an invading force that's been murdering civilians sounds pretty beneficial to me, even if they did throw a few crumbs to local translators that wanna leave now. Though still looks like we're far away from that

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jwb

I think it fell quickly because we pulled out quickly based on a half assed date with no other plans for dealing with the aftermath.

Again, this is not the first time we've left an occupied country.

Yes, I'm sure we will see far fewer murder of civilians now that we're gone.

Frownland

This but unironically

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Mucha na Dziko

I guess you're right

Still the decision seems to me not the best one possible. Or at least not carried out in the best way possible (not even close, when you read the news)

It already came back really.


The ironic thing about all of this is that Afghanistan in the 50-70s was actually quite the progressive country and a Mecca for hippies.

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The Batlord

Alright, the generals in Afghanistan? Pre-existing warlords we gave uniforms and cash. Then they inflated their recruit numbers to get more cash out of cause we pay their troops for them. Then they took the money we'd give them for their actual soldiers and send it to Dubai. Then their soldiers who never gor paid would sell whatever they had (guns, ammo, fuel, shoes) to the Taliban so they could eat. Then they'd probably desert, the warlords would recruit more "soldiers", rinse repeat gor 20 years.

The Afghan army mostly existed on paper.

As far as I know the officials were just whatever tribal leaders we thought would be the best colonial figureheads and their power never went much further than the buildings housing their offices since they didn't actually have any functional control over the warlords. Mostly they just used their positions to do much the same as the warlords, grifting money and sending it to Dubai.

The Afghan government also mostly existed on paper.

This happened differently than in Iraq because despite everything that happened between the two Gulf Wars and the sanctions in the 90s it was still some semblance of a functional country, whereas Afghanistan has been one big crater since the 70s.

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jadis

It never went away.

While it may only get even worse for ordinary Afghans in the coming years, there is something to be said for the alternative to the Taliban no longer being violent foreign invaders who don't even pretend to have any coherent long-term plan for the country. Say what you will about the Iraq war, but in addition to all the profiteering, it was also driven by sincerely-held delusions about "nation-building". With Afghanistan the pretense was never even there.

If only someone knew what was behind the change. Maybe Zbigniew Brzezinski could have an idea?



https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/...ordering-pizza

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Since this is a music forum ...

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