Faster Than Anyone Imagined. Kabul Under Siege.
We have to give the Taliban their due. They haven't wasted their years in exile. They're still as brutal as ever but they've learned from their mistakes.
Taliban Mk. 1 was a Pashtun movement. The Pashtun, the largest of Afghanistan's tribes, are from the south. When the Mujahedeen sent the Soviets packing, the Talibs, with the approval and assistance of Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, grabbed power in Kabul. That angered the other ethnic groups - Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Turkmen, (there are 16 in all). They formed an army called the Northern Alliance to challenge the Taliban. It was, to some extent, north versus south.
When 9/11 happened, the Talibs and Northern Alliance forces had fought each other to a standstill. Both sides were exhausted. Then the CIA showed up with special forces and, above all else, airpower. The Americans and the Northern Alliance routed the Taliban in short order. The Talibs wisely took refuge across the border in Pakistan. al Qaeda and bin Laden headed for the caves of Tora Bora. Defying US special forces and American bombers, bin Laden and his crew also hightailed it to safety.
Gradually the Taliban returned to Afghanistan and set up an insurgency that morphed into a rebellion and, finally, a civil war. This time, however, Taliban Mk. 2 didn't neglect the northern provinces. They didn't confine themselves to the Pashtun territories.
Meanwhile the west, the US and ISAF forces, spent two decades playing "whack-a-mole." We did little more than babysit an unresolved civil war. We were never "in it to win it."
Last week, as the US military packed its bags, the Taliban made its move. As the Afghan National Army dissolved, the Talibs captured one provincial capital after another. They bagged four more just yesterday. They also took control of large parts of Highway 1, the circular road that is Afghanistan's economic and security lifeline. Now they're closing in on the national capital, Kabul.
How bad is it? Bad enough that western nations, including the US, the UK and Canada, are sending thousands of special forces troops to safeguard the evacuation of their embassies in Kabul. They're not wasting any time either. That's underway today.
It's like the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in 1975 but with one huge difference. While several units of the South Vietnamese army collapsed there were others that fought back until the end. On the day the South capitulated, South Vietnamese tanks repulsed North Vietnamese tank columns, helicopters and strike fighters engaged NVA forces. The desperate defence of Saigon only ended when the government ordered its forces to lay down their arms.
We're not seeing that sort of fighting retreat this time. The collapse of the Afghan National Army confirms that the American leadership was right to pull the plug. After 20 years the Afghan government left no doubt it was too corrupt even to field an effective army.
There'll be plenty of finger pointing and Joe Biden will be the prime target.
no one in afghanistan asked to be invaded
ReplyDeletethose who welcomed the invaders
translated and guided and supported them
would have have names like quisling and benedict arnold here
just because we did it
with some of the best 911 propaganda
and moral superiority that we don't have
and promise to defend the innocent
that we don't defend here
doesn't make it right
that any of it happened
no matter in what country
collaborating with foreign nationals is kind of frowned on
an army formed under foreigners
and left behind to fight your own countrymen is doomed
and i'm sure it is just what canada needs
people who have proven to betray their own country once already
Whatever is happening in Afghanistan is been under reported and under estimated in the western press.
ReplyDeleteThus ends the under reported Afghanistan campaign.
We never really knew what the hell was happening!!
TASS could do no better in the USSR days.
TB
It was obvious from the git-go that the invasion/occupation would not end well but few in the media noticed. The history books are full of failed counter-insurgencies yet we repeated all of the past blunders. Crazy.
Delete"TASS could do no better in the USSR days."
ReplyDeleteThe difference was the Soviet people knew their press was corrupt. incompetent and misleading.
There were some who spoke out. A fellow I corresponded with, Johnathan Landy, then of Knight Ridder, now with Reuters, spent a couple of years running the hills with the Mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation. He knew the West had little if any chance of prevailing over the Talibs. Nobody was in the mood to listen to that sort of thing.
Delete.. I've written fiction for my 2nd unpublished novel. It's set in a mountain pass where Soviet squads slide into Afghanistan from Pakistan on probes & a solo American sniper is a one man watch squad with a radio & a very big gun from high in the pass. He sends them discouraging accuracy in 50 mm aka the 'Go back where you just came from' message without hurting any but kinda hurtin their feelings about being caught out, stark naked, in the open and in the crest of the pass. The terrain is astonishing to read about, National Geographic etc - very 3rd world with iPhones - 16 tribes / ethnic groups you say ! The Wikipedia search for Afghan invaders is quite stunning. It's like everyone wants a shot at 'saving' Afghanistan from the barberians & heathen Bandidos. Who's to say what the right and the wrong of it all .. Such countries are prone to ongoing religious or the vast spectrum of 'factional hostility' (market bombings) It's fascinating that Ghengis Khan passed there. I plan to read up on his take on the mountainous region, clans and tribes
ReplyDeleteAfghanistan, as we know it today, straddled one of the most important trade routes in that area. Everyone wanted to control it.
DeleteEarly on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings into what sort of government America should establish in Kabul. A staffer gave evidence that the Afghans would never have a stable government without first eliminating the dual scourge of tribalism and warlordism. That would be about as well received as asking the Afghan people to stop breathing.
Lungta - "No one in Afghanistan asked to be invaded." Yet one group after another has taken a chunk of the territory - Pashtun, Baloch, Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, Turkmen, 16 ethnic groups in all. Back in the days when girls in Kabul were able to attend university in western clothing, the country was held together by a monarchy.
ReplyDeleteyes i get that it is tribal
Deletethose tribes are ancient
Afghanistan being the collection of those tribes
they didn't so much take a chunk
as say "well this is where we are and have always been"
but if you want tribes to unite just invade
This jogged an old memory!
ReplyDeletehttps://mapcruzin.com/news/war111901a.htm
How soon we forget.
TB
I was talking about this with a friend a few days ago. Somewhere in one of my files there's a photo of the Talib contingent visiting Haliburton's offices in Sweetwater Texas. That was while Cheney was CEO back before he became VP.
DeleteI still search for the TV footage of BP, Exxon , Cheney ,Halliburton execs leaving a meeting prior to the invasion of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteThey openly admitted they were planning to re distribute Iraq's oil resources.
We laugh at the old Pravda and other cold war news providers.
Our western media is so compliant to big business that we don't need state censorship.
TB
.. I did look up Ghengis Khan vis a vis Afghanistan. He certainly did not just pass through. He stomped it. It may have been his most savage occupation - but he followed his basic strategies - noteworthy though is he spared the local religions & of course collected the finest minds in Astronomy, Mathematics, Geography, Mapping & History and brought them around them always. He also spared enemy officers if they subjected to his Domain & could reveal their military strategies
ReplyDeleteMore on the great Khan:
Deletehttps://abhijitchavda.com/history/revealed-why-genghis-khan-refused-to-invade-india/
Afghanistan, as a region, has been awfully fluid as one conqueror after another passed through. There are some 16 ethnic groups speaking three or four languages among them. When the Brits delineated Pakistan they arranged it for colonial convenience, neatly severing the homelands of the Pashtun and Baloch who never recognized the border.
DeleteAll the F35's in the world could not stop Humpty Dumpty from falling!
ReplyDeleteTB
Consider this, TB. When was the last time America's unquestioned military dominance resulted in lasting victory? I reckon that would be Grenada (1984) or Panama (1989).
DeleteAs for the F-35 I marvel at how long in the tooth that aircraft is. The programme began in 1995, first operational flight in 2006, and now, 15 years later, it's still being touted as the latest and greatest. The aircraft still isn't out of development and Lockheed still has to solve critical faults.
Because of the F-35s range, internal payload and other shortcomings the Americans have had to develop supporting systems such as stealth refueling pilotless aircraft and drone swarms to allow the 35 to send in attackers from a safe distance.