Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.
The moment Taliban started to carve out territory inside Afghanistan, that leverage was gone. There's some gratitude, but also lots of resentment among Taliban leadership about the way they were treated by the Pakistani authority.
Is Pakistan aiding them in this current offense? It really doesn't seem like it.
It's clear that in the past 30 years afganistan did not have a functioning government at all. Its not about popular support, its a failure of 'statebuilding'
https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corru...
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-11-04/the...
The explanation is very, very simple, but I don't see any Western media talking about it at all.
Basically, Afghan government fell apart when USA withdrew the pork barrel of military contracts from locals.
People forget that 20 years ago USA mounted all kinds of warlords, and other rogue elements into seats of power. The entirety of regional elites which emerged in these 20 years are a product of that system.
The only things securing their loyalty to USA, and thus to the government in Kabul were American money.
The moment they ran out, it all fell apart just like Middle Eastern, and Latin American US friendly regimes. The "Our Bastard!" theory showed extreme naivete of people following it yet again.
There is no such things as "Our Bastards!" Time to learn that after 60 years.
Henry Kisinger lured USA into a geopolitical deathtrap with his lunatical political theories. Now US has found itself in the world surrounded by backstabbing, and turncoat regimes of its own making, who nor fear, nor respect it now, and who will pounce the moment USA stops spoonfeeding them, and shows its back.
USA has less allies in the world now than at any time in the last century.
USA can't now fight half the world dominated by solidified group of corrupt regimes.
Escaping this situation will be extremely hard.
USA cannot rely on allies who are loyal only to American printing press.
USA will not score any real allies without changing itself first
If there is anything the past few decades have shown, it's that the pocketbook and the sword are both useless tools when it comes to any kind of Middle Eastern policy.
Last time there was a pretty strong grassroot movement against Taliban, particularly in the northern parts of the nation. Taliban didn't have to fire a shot in many of these places this time.
If this really is Saigon 2.0, 20 years from now Afghanistan will be a peaceful country with active tourism. With the Taliban seemingly making efforts to appease China for economic gain, who knows, it just might happen.
Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.
Q Why?
THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
...
I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
Also with the sheer size of the US embassy - it rather looks to me like there never was a sovereign afghan government in the first place, so of course they don't stand a chance on its own. It was all too artificial and US dependent.
(I of course don't at all doubt that the big military contractors have been making a ton of money from the wars, but I'm specifically referring to their corporate influence being the primary/secondary/tertiary/etc. force behind why we were still in Afghanistan after two decades.)
My own uninformed Occam's razor assumption would've been that it's primarily a matter of tangled geopolitics rather than a military-industrial complex scheme from day one to today. That is, that the State Department and top-level strategists and policy advisors are mostly the people to blame.
Maybe it's all of the above or some complex mixture. But what I want to know is the actual individuals responsible, or at least where they're contained. Not just an opaque storm cloud labeled "the military-industrial complex" or "the Deep State". For example, it could potentially be the case that this narrative might actually unintentionally help to shield the people who are truly culpable.
Only US and NATO provided military assistance. Others like India invested billions in constructive projects like Salma dam.
I guess the Afghan army should have focused more on quality than size to be able to afford talanted soldiers.
The failure is not in money, training, or conscription. The failure is in not giving the army any reason to fight.
If you don't give a rat's ass about your cause, and there's a serious possibility of defeat, why would you keep fighting?
The problem is that in twenty years, the coalition-supported government failed to make enough of its constituents give a rat's ass about their cause. They might not like the Taliban much, but they seem to prefer to live under them, than die for what is perceived as a corrupt, self-serving, ineffective government.
> If you don't give a rat's ass about your cause, and there's a serious possibility of defeat, why would you keep fighting?
Keep fighting? My understanding is that there was no serious effort to fight from the army's side.