I am struggling hard with the concept that after 20 years and a lot of people who are way more educated on this topic than I am saying “this will happen,” we couldn’t even get out all the people we promised to save. People were clinging to the airplane wing as it took off. I do not understand the desperation that you have to feel to do that, and how could we have not arranged things so those people would be safe?
This is always how it was going to end. We go into a place not understanding the culture or values, just assuming that what middle class white Americans value and desire is what everyone desires. It's why the "war on poverty" in Appalachia failed--that's a separate culture from the rest of America and they don't value what the white saviors were selling (I'm from Appalachia).
I think Afghanistan had something like 30 miles of paved road in 2001.
The Taliban has always said "They have the watches, but we have the time."
This is a response from Reddit that sums up some reasons why we failed:
The thing about the situation in afghanistan that many people don't realise/overlook is the culture of afghanistan itself.
The country is very rural and filled with isolated tribes. Many of the borders of the "stan" countries are drawn arbitrarily by Europeans who've never set foot inside the countries themselves.
To give an example, there are more Uzbek people in the country of Tajikistan, than there are in Uzbekistan. Likewise, there are more Tajik people in Afghanistan than there are in Tajikistan.
This leads to a weird phenomenon wherein there is no such thing as a "national identity" to these people. A map of the country means nothing to them, since it's just a bunch of lines that other people drew and forced them into. Afghan people hold more value towards tribal ties, and the specific ethnic group they come from, rather than the country as a whole.
This is also why the ANA has an extremely high desertion rate, and isn't even fighting back,, because an extremely high majority of the soldiers there are not willing to lay their lives down for Afghanistan as a country, since they have no care for the country as a whole, only to their tribe.
The only thing holding the ANA together in the first place is the fact that you get paid to be there. Once the money runs dry or a genuine risk of death arrives, they'll just dip out of there.
Add to this the fact that the Taliban have stated multiple times that they will give mercy to any ANA soldiers who don't fight, and it's a pretty reasonable offer to the soldiers.
Could also reflect it being Sunday but elected officials like Ruben Gallego have been reporting that they expected communication blowing up from constituents and it’s been crickets.
This is interesting to me because y’all know I’m pretty informed about legislative action but I’m not clear what the path is here? As a layperson it feels like the decision was already made and it doesn’t feel like contacting representatives is going to do anything?
Like, could Congress reverse this? And if so, is that even reasonable or desirable as a course of action? What levers exist? Is it to expedite asylum for people in Afghanistan somehow? Some other intervention? Maybe they’re not hearing from people because people have no idea what to do or say. Or maybe I’m projecting.
I feel lost. I think I said this the last time we discussed the “end” of US involvement in Afghanistan a month or so ago, but this war has been a fixture nearly my entire life, and certainly as long as I’ve followed politics. The situation now is awful and hopeless but it’s also clear that staying indefinitely is not the answer.
I think it might be helpful to demand that our government uphold its promises to the Afghans who helped us by transporting them and their families out, granting them sanctuary in the US, and expediting visas.
Could also reflect it being Sunday but elected officials like Ruben Gallego have been reporting that they expected communication blowing up from constituents and it’s been crickets.
This is interesting to me because y’all know I’m pretty informed about legislative action but I’m not clear what the path is here? As a layperson it feels like the decision was already made and it doesn’t feel like contacting representatives is going to do anything?
I agree with you, but think about the various reasons people call their elected officials for anything. If someone felt super strongly about, say, missteps by Biden especially (since he's the current POTUS), they'd make it known. But, if it being Sunday wasn't a factor, then maybe they're not calling because this was inevitable, or they're not exactly sure what the solution is (stay forever? No one will argue that).
ETA: I agree with VillainV about evacuating allies to safety. I'll be calling my elected officials today about that.
Post by Velar Fricative on Aug 16, 2021 7:29:56 GMT -5
dirtyred, I agree with that post about country lines being arbitrary. The Tajiks in Afghanistan versus Tajiks in Tajikistan is accurate, but not the Uzbekistan example. Uzbekistan has the largest population in Central Asia (and larger than Afghanistan's population too) and it's majority Uzbek. Tajikistan has a much smaller population than Uzbekistan so there wouldn't be more Uzbeks there than there are in Uzbekistan. However, the point still stands that these are extremely diverse countries.
dirtyred , I agree with that post about country lines being arbitrary. The Tajiks in Afghanistan versus Tajiks in Tajikistan is accurate, but not the Uzbekistan example. Uzbekistan has the largest population in Central Asia (and larger than Afghanistan's population too) and it's majority Uzbek. Tajikistan has a much smaller population than Uzbekistan so there wouldn't be more Uzbeks there than there are in Uzbekistan. However, the point still stands that these are extremely diverse countries.
I wasn't sure about the veracity of populations (it was from Reddit, afterall), but the comment does make the point that it more like a 1600's feudal system than a modern country.
Admittedly uneducated on the subject as well, but reading the news over the past week feels hopeless and another gut punch. Its hard to comprehend 20 years of war seeing it end this way. I can't imagine the emotions for those who served.
I saw a news alert over the weekend that Biden admin officials were 'surprised' by how things turned. And that made me angry. I am not very well informed on the topic. I won't even pretend to be, but to hear that officials whose job is to literally be SMEs on this are surprised? That's a load of BS to me.
That coupled with the line that we're doing what we can to get translators out but to hear that there are so many layers of red tape for them to get through feels futile.
So I am angry for the people who served. Scared for the men, but especially women and children who are left behind. And side eyeing these admin officials who are taking the "oh wow we didn't expect this" route.
This is interesting to me because y’all know I’m pretty informed about legislative action but I’m not clear what the path is here? As a layperson it feels like the decision was already made and it doesn’t feel like contacting representatives is going to do anything?
Like, could Congress reverse this? And if so, is that even reasonable or desirable as a course of action? What levers exist? Is it to expedite asylum for people in Afghanistan somehow? Some other intervention? Maybe they’re not hearing from people because people have no idea what to do or say. Or maybe I’m projecting.
I feel lost. I think I said this the last time we discussed the “end” of US involvement in Afghanistan a month or so ago, but this war has been a fixture nearly my entire life, and certainly as long as I’ve followed politics. The situation now is awful and hopeless but it’s also clear that staying indefinitely is not the answer.
I think it might be helpful to demand that our government uphold its promises to the Afghans who helped us by transporting them and their families out, granting them sanctuary in the US, and expediting visas.
Thank you. This has been a missing piece for me. I don’t think I really grasped that we had dropped the ball on this quite so thoroughly, and reading more this morning I’m really horrified. I made calls to my full delegation this morning and I hope others do too.
I saw a news alert over the weekend that Biden admin officials were 'surprised' by how things turned. And that made me angry. I am not very well informed on the topic. I won't even pretend to be, but to hear that officials whose job is to literally be SMEs on this are surprised? That's a load of BS to me.
That coupled with the line that we're doing what we can to get translators out but to hear that there are so many layers of red tape for them to get through feels futile.
So I am angry for the people who served. Scared for the men, but especially women and children who are left behind. And side eyeing these admin officials who are taking the "oh wow we didn't expect this" route.
I know, that really surprised me too. And that they admitted to being surprised. You'd think they'd rather put out the talking points of "Yeah, we knew this is exactly what would happen but we must withdraw, etc."
I have been in a daze about this since yesterday. I am feeling gutted and hopeless and so depressed about it all. I so appreciate the reminder from Velar Fricative to call our elected officials; I called all of the NH senators and representatives this morning. And thank you to VillainV for the link to no one left behind. I made a donation as well.
This one really hits close to home; my dad lived in Afghanistan for many years. 20 years ago we took in a refugee family and helped them get on their feet; their family became our family and our family became theirs. My dad's memorial service is this weekend and I am glad he is not here to see this. He would be completely heartbroken.
And by lying about how close the insurgents had come to harming Cheney, the U.S. military sank deeper into a pattern of deceiving the public about many facets of the war, from discrete events to the big picture. What began as selective, self-serving disclosures after the 2001 invasion gradually hardened into willful distortions and, eventually, flat-out fabrications.
I would also like to recognize that it wasn't just Bush, it was an ongoing pattern throughout 3 administrations that got us to this point. The US military learned nothing from Vietnam other than how to hide what they were doing from the press and the general public.
This is always how it was going to end. We go into a place not understanding the culture or values, just assuming that what middle class white Americans value and desire is what everyone desires. It's why the "war on poverty" in Appalachia failed--that's a separate culture from the rest of America and they don't value what the white saviors were selling (I'm from Appalachia).
I think Afghanistan had something like 30 miles of paved road in 2001.
The Taliban has always said "They have the watches, but we have the time."
This is a response from Reddit that sums up some reasons why we failed:
The thing about the situation in afghanistan that many people don't realise/overlook is the culture of afghanistan itself.
The country is very rural and filled with isolated tribes. Many of the borders of the "stan" countries are drawn arbitrarily by Europeans who've never set foot inside the countries themselves.
To give an example, there are more Uzbek people in the country of Tajikistan, than there are in Uzbekistan. Likewise, there are more Tajik people in Afghanistan than there are in Tajikistan.
This leads to a weird phenomenon wherein there is no such thing as a "national identity" to these people. A map of the country means nothing to them, since it's just a bunch of lines that other people drew and forced them into. Afghan people hold more value towards tribal ties, and the specific ethnic group they come from, rather than the country as a whole.
This is also why the ANA has an extremely high desertion rate, and isn't even fighting back,, because an extremely high majority of the soldiers there are not willing to lay their lives down for Afghanistan as a country, since they have no care for the country as a whole, only to their tribe.
The only thing holding the ANA together in the first place is the fact that you get paid to be there. Once the money runs dry or a genuine risk of death arrives, they'll just dip out of there.
Add to this the fact that the Taliban have stated multiple times that they will give mercy to any ANA soldiers who don't fight, and it's a pretty reasonable offer to the soldiers.
So, and pardon my ignorance as I try to understand this all, but what was the eventual outcome going to be then? Because you have a bunch of people with no ties to their country (which i understand) but they want help staying safe? So, an outside force with more interest in keeping things safe in their country than the residents would be required forever then? I’m not trying to be judgmental if it sounds like that. I’m really trying to understand the dynamics going through on.
Was there another step to do in the 20 years we were there? Go further out into the desert to gain allies/ownership and/or squash resistance? Because the at sounds a lot like an extermination plan and sounds beyond horrid. Or train citizens and groups to have more of the rah rah my country spirit? Because that seems something that I don’t quite know.
Thanks for explaining so much about the cultures at play there. That helps a lot, but also raises a ton of questions. At least for me.
Thirdly, I would like to blame the US for trying to force their American-centric ideology on a society that does not work the way we do.
Senior U.S. officials said the Pentagon fell victim to the conceit that it could build from scratch an enormous Afghan army and police force with 350,000 personnel that was modeled on the centralized command structures and complex bureaucracy of the Defense Department. Though it was obvious from the beginning that the Afghans were struggling to make the U.S.-designed system work, the Pentagon kept throwing money at the problem and assigning new generals to find a solution.
So, and pardon my ignorance as I try to understand this all, but what was the eventual outcome going to be then? Because you have a bunch of people with no ties to their country (which i understand) but they want help staying safe? So, an outside force with more interest in keeping things safe in their country than the residents would be required forever then? I’m not trying to be judgmental if it sounds like that. I’m really trying to understand the dynamics going through on.
Was there another step to do in the 20 years we were there? Go further out into the desert to gain allies/ownership and/or squash resistance? Because the at sounds a lot like an extermination plan and sounds beyond horrid. Or train citizens and groups to have more of the rah rah my country spirit? Because that seems something that I don’t quite know.
Thanks for explaining so much about the cultures at play there. That helps a lot, but also raises a ton of questions. At least for me.
I just posted an article that explains this a bit. You're looking at it from a purely American inverventionalist standpoint. We tried to go in and set them up with our cultural/militaristic ideals and we failed because that isn't how they think and operate. We never gave them a chance to find a sustainable way to govern. It was our way or nothing. Who knows what solutions they might have come up with without us force feeding them.
I’m so sad and angry about the people who assisted our Gov’t who were left behind and have their lives endangered or are on the run trying to escape. A safe exit plan should have been prepared. That doesn’t help all the women left in the country. I don’t think anyone can argue this wasn’t a potential outcome. While it is a tribal area of the world, my mind always goes to the stories I’ve heard of Kabul in the ‘50s and ‘60s when women had rights to education and to dress how they wished, and the city was on track to be modernized like other European cities, before the violence and oppression that started in the 70s.
So, and pardon my ignorance as I try to understand this all, but what was the eventual outcome going to be then? Because you have a bunch of people with no ties to their country (which i understand) but they want help staying safe? So, an outside force with more interest in keeping things safe in their country than the residents would be required forever then? I’m not trying to be judgmental if it sounds like that. I’m really trying to understand the dynamics going through on.
Was there another step to do in the 20 years we were there? Go further out into the desert to gain allies/ownership and/or squash resistance? Because the at sounds a lot like an extermination plan and sounds beyond horrid. Or train citizens and groups to have more of the rah rah my country spirit? Because that seems something that I don’t quite know.
Thanks for explaining so much about the cultures at play there. That helps a lot, but also raises a ton of questions. At least for me.
I just posted an article that explains this a bit. You're looking at it from a purely American inverventionalist standpoint. We tried to go in and set them up with our cultural/militaristic ideals and we failed because that isn't how they think and operate. We never gave them a chance to find a sustainable way to govern. It was our way or nothing. Who knows what solutions they might have come up with without us force feeding them.
I’m sorry you see it that way. I was actually really questioning the American force fed way. None of our paths seemed reasonable or possible. I can see how that might not have clear though.
Thank for the articles though. It is helping understand this incredibly complex and sad situation.
Post by mcppalmbeach on Aug 16, 2021 10:53:49 GMT -5
I’m not educated enough to say much beyond the current “gee whiz we had no idea this would happen” isn’t going to wear well. We’ve known this was coming so why weren’t “bug out” bags and plans created for each and every person we’ve endangered with our involvement instead of leaving them to twist in the wind.
The pictures coming out of Afghanistan are devastating. The spontaneous foreign policy experts online who have been attacking Biden non stop without any introspection of what they themselves were saying a month ago, is just incredible to watch. I’m not saying Biden is free from criticism regarding how this was handled. I’m sure someone dropped the ball somewhere, but this was never going to be a clean break. Which is why the can kept getting kicked further and further. But I’m not going to fall for this sudden outrage by some (obviously in the general sense).
My thoughts are on those who are in fear and are in desperate need of help.
dirtyred , I agree with that post about country lines being arbitrary. The Tajiks in Afghanistan versus Tajiks in Tajikistan is accurate, but not the Uzbekistan example. Uzbekistan has the largest population in Central Asia (and larger than Afghanistan's population too) and it's majority Uzbek. Tajikistan has a much smaller population than Uzbekistan so there wouldn't be more Uzbeks there than there are in Uzbekistan. However, the point still stands that these are extremely diverse countries.
I wasn't sure about the veracity of populations (it was from Reddit, afterall), but the comment does make the point that it more like a 1600's feudal system than a modern country.
I’m not going to be able to find the article I’m alluding to, but this really fits with something I was reading yesterday. It was talking about the Afghan government, warlords, and the Taliban. And the “warlord” description really struck me as to just where the culture was. I can’t imagine US people being able to grasp just how different that culture must be.
I’m not saying Biden is free from criticism regarding how this was handled. I’m sure someone dropped the ball somewhere, but this was never going to be a clean break.
It’s also incredibly hard to understand what’s going on, and how much of the criticism against Biden is warranted, when a lot of the voices screaming that Biden is wrong are simultaneously screaming that he wasn’t legitimately elected in the first place and Trump handled the Afghanistan better and the whole thing is an obvious hoax because the London/Moscow clocks in the Situation Room might be on the wrong times. I know it’s nothing new, but the deep level of partisanship in this country means we’re never going to have a clear picture of all of this.
I’m not saying Biden is free from criticism regarding how this was handled. I’m sure someone dropped the ball somewhere, but this was never going to be a clean break.
It’s also incredibly hard to understand what’s going on, and how much of the criticism against Biden is warranted, when a lot of the voices screaming that Biden is wrong are simultaneously screaming that he wasn’t legitimately elected in the first place and Trump handled the Afghanistan better and the whole thing is an obvious hoax because the London/Moscow clocks in the Situation Room might be on the wrong times. I know it’s nothing new, but the deep level of partisanship in this country means we’re never going to have a clear picture of all of this.
When I commented on a local FB group about having to really dig deep given the complexities of the last 20 years and that there will probably be blame going around on Bush, Obama, Trump AND Biden in the coming weeks/months/years, I got a response of "Oh, of course!!! Liberals always have to blame Trump for everything!!!" Because the mere mention of his name even among all the other names meant that I place blame squarely on him. Come the fuck on.
I’m not saying Biden is free from criticism regarding how this was handled. I’m sure someone dropped the ball somewhere, but this was never going to be a clean break.
It’s also incredibly hard to understand what’s going on, and how much of the criticism against Biden is warranted, when a lot of the voices screaming that Biden is wrong are simultaneously screaming that he wasn’t legitimately elected in the first place and Trump handled the Afghanistan better and the whole thing is an obvious hoax because the London/Moscow clocks in the Situation Room might be on the wrong times. I know it’s nothing new, but the deep level of partisanship in this country means we’re never going to have a clear picture of all of this.
And Trump's plan was to have everyone out in May. How was that going to be any different?
This video is just… wow. Like others, I just don’t understand this all that well except to say that I’m not surprised it’s going this way. I will call my representatives about providing transfer and asylum to the Afghans who are at risk.
My brother served two tours in Afghanistan. He is saddened by the situation and like many others, feels it was inevitable. He doesn't think the war was a waste, though. His take is that the goal was never to stabilize the region - that the ancient tribal divisions are too far engrained for there to ever be a realistic hope of unification. Instead, he feels that the war served to consolidate and distract extremists from waging terrorism on the West. Which was largely successful. But now...I am nervous to see what comes next.
That's not to say that I think we should have stayed - I really am not educated enough on the topic to have an opinion. But I agree with everyone here who has said that I sincerely wish we had been able to plan and execute a better exit strategy, particularly with respect to aid for our allies.
I just want to clarify interpreters are not the only locals that worked on a military base in Afghanistan. I keep seeing "the interpreters". For every 1 service member there were 4 or 5 civilians out there. On my base locals worked at the dfacs, bx, laundry, external guards, cleaning crews, burn pits etc. Any local national who went on a base was watched, monitored, and threatened. The Taliban and thieves watched the entry control points to see who was making US dollar. I had people call off work because the Taliban kidnapped his brother and he had to go pay them off in Pakistan. I've had locals beaten and robbed to just show up to work the next day. What else could they do?
Often, our LNs would pay a driver a lot of money to pick them up all up, trust them to leave their cellphone for the day with them, and drop them off at the gate and do it all over when their shift was over. They got patted down 3x, walked a clearing that had random signals to det any possible hidden explosives, walked thru metal detectors, and could only carry one day's worth of food, cigarettes, and the clothes on their backs. EVERY DAY. normally our workers came on 6 days a week. It takes at least an hour to get on and off post. How do we protect all these people? How do we save them all and their families? It seems impossible.
640 evacuated on a C17. The picture 😭 There are @s in the picture that might make you tear up. At least they did me (not injured or anything, just the gravity. Especially the one in the lower right)