In that regard I'd see the current situation as a success, not a failure. It also seems like the Taliban have chilled out a bit, since we're not seeing widescale reprisals.
They haven't "chilled out", they've just won.
No, I would say that the Afghanis were literally told that they were going to eventually lose the war and that the Taliban would eventually win. The people put in the position to fight the Taliban made the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause.
I wonder how long they cashed their checks, knowing full well they were going to surrender immediately as soon as the US was going to pull out. Or better, despite not ever having the intention of fighting (or even agreeing with the Taliban), claiming persecution to hustle a western visa/passport when they would inevitably lose.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanista...
Consider:
- the Taliban that G.W. Bush knew are gone. Most of them have died,
- OBL and most of his partners are dead,
- almost anyone who helped OBL and is still alive remains a target and lives in fear for their life,
IOW who "won" might be considered to depend on what we mean by the word "Taliban". The Taliban today is not the Taliban of yesteryear. If there is someone who was Taliban during G.W.'s term and is still Taliban today, ask him whether this feels like victory. He might say yes, but then ask him about his old fighting buddies who weren't as lucky as he.
The term "winner" can also mean someone who is still standing when the game ends. In this sense today's "Taliban" has won.
I think we made our point and overstayed our welcome. And now we're going home. We're late but we are leaving Afghanistan.
Well it certainly wouldn’t include UBL or anyone in Al Qaeda, since they are two totally different groups with totally different goals. We could have gone in 20 years ago with the goal of destroying Al Qaeda and their ability to organize terror attacks. We chose to also overthrow the Taliban “government” and install a new government in Afghanistan.
> If there is someone who was Taliban during G.W.'s term and is still Taliban today, ask him whether this feels like victory. He might say yes, but then ask him about his old fighting buddies who weren't as lucky as he.
"The days of the Taliban are over. The future of Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan. And the future of Afghanistan belongs to freedom." -President Bush 2006
“I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God's path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected... The promise of Bush is that there is no place on earth where you can hide that I cannot find you. We will see which one of these two promises is fulfilled…As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors - the Soviets and, before them, the British.”- Mullah Mohammad Omar, 2001
Mullah Mohammad Omar died of natural causes. Jalaluddin Haqqani died of natural causes, and Sirajuddin Haqqani and the other Haqqani senior leaders of today were around in 2001. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, “the Butcher of Kabul”, and a key senior ally to the Taliban pre and post 9/11 is alive and pardoned. Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban, is out of prison, and signed the agreement on behalf of the Taliban for the US withdrawal. The Taliban of 2001 and the Taliban of today are the same Taliban, just 20 years apart.
I don’t find your “considerations” at all compelling.
For all we know that was the idea of our own military or intelligence community & now we are conveniently placing the blame for our mistakes on a government that no longer exists
But even more, no matter what group was making the decision, no one could have admitted, no matter how much they expected it, that the whole structure was going to rapidly disintegrate. Because the structure was their product - they produced and managed the thing.
The dumbest thing we did in Iraq was to do the functional equivalent of the Taliban doing reprisals by disbanding the military, government, and Ba’ath party. It created a mass unemployment problem and swelled the ranks of the opposition with listless now unemployed people.
Instead the US had to attempt to rebuild all of those structures of command largely from the ground up anew, which takes years of time and tremendous resources. During those build years, you get constant intense chaos and instability fighting you while you attempt to make progress. It was exceptionally stupid.
The problem is exactly that it didn't.
Instead the US mounted all kinds of compromised personas into power, hoping that they can do without proper state institutes
1. Remove the diplomats, embassy staff, translators and other Afghani helpers who were promised safety in return of helping the Americans first.
2. Remove the military equipment - guns, drones, choppers, humvees etc second so that it doesn't fall in the Taliban's hands. At least destroy these equipment if it can't be logistically brought back. Destroy the bases so Taliban can't use them.
3. Lastly pull out the droops as all the important soft targets have already been taken out.
These 3 should have been done in winter before May (original deal was for May) because the Taliban has problems in the winter weather.
Instead of this order, they did the exact opposite. US sat on its ass, didn't remove the soft targets or even take care of those who helped the US. US just pulled out the troops and we ended up with videos of Afghanis running and falling off of aeroplanes and Taliban getting hold of humvees and choppers. And now to take out the soft targets, they have sent 9000 troops back in along with the UK. The Afghanis who had helped Americans for 2 decades got abandoned. And since summer time is when Taliban is at its easiest to move around, the airports have also been taken over.
Assuming they didn't harbor double allegiances.
They have also invested heavily in their relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan protected Bin Ladin and are deeply involved in Afghanistan. China can lean on Pakistan to compliment its direct relationship with the Taliban.
Not to mention that the Chinese are significantly more motivated to make Afghanistan work.
As a sign of their influence, the Taliban has said that whatever happens in China’s borders is their business. This was in response to questions about the Uighurs, which, you know, if you’re an Islamic regime you might at least pretend to care about.
And let’s say China does somehow befriend the Taliban and build all this infrastructure, and import hundreds of thousands of workers that somehow the Taliban doesn’t decide are yet another empire to kick out. What do you think they do with these resources? They make iPhones. That westerners buy.
And again, even if they do somehow make this happen. Why should anybody care? It’s not like the US is losing these resources or something. And why would China, as large of a country as it is, need these resources? Is it even profitable to extract?
I keep seeing this narrative and it seems to me to be hugely superficial at best. China and Russia would probably prefer the U.S. just keep wasting money and attention in Afghanistan.
in the same way that the klu kluk klan are american but America isn't the klan.
I hate to be flippant here but this really shows a continued western misunderstanding of how people in places like Afghanistan live.
And even if they did all of that, what good is it exactly? Is China out of resources in China and now will build mountain passes and teach Afghanis how to drive trucks and all of that to mine resources? Sure sounds like nation building to me.
And why would the Taliban agree to this anyway? They could just do the mining themselves.
I agree with you. It is not a straightforward and foregone conclusion. Taliban has clearly shown that it can play a very long game. That said, so can Chinese.
US can barely handle one news cycle lately.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/21/china-taliban-afghanist...
A sister comment already noted the mineral resources, but don't forget the main function of Afghanistan as a nation: production of heroin. Narcopolitics are so fantastically more significant than ever gets any attention from "surface" media, but this is the name of the game. Chinese fentanyl has taken over the global opiate black market, so they have every incentive to support the Taliban who will repress the rival heroin trade over the US-backed government who supported it.
But, China probably still has the upper hand in the opiate business here, because fentanyl is far easier to smuggle.
In bad years, they don't expect any taxes.
(It does look like the Taliban has lightened up a bit, but time will tell. Every news station is bashing every aspect of the Taliban.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanis...
> The opium trade spiked in 2006 after the Taliban lost control of local warlords
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...
> Ironically, the only power that has demonstrated an ability to cripple the Afghan drug industry is the Taliban.
> In July 2000, when the Taliban controlled most of the country, its reclusive one-eyed leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, declared that opium was un-Islamic and imposed a ban on growing poppies.
> Much to the surprise of the rest of the world, the ban worked. Afraid to cross the Taliban, Afghan farmers immediately ceased planting poppies. The United Nations estimated that poppy cultivation plunged by 90 percent from 2000 to 2001.
Indeed! The speculation is that there are people very high up in Chinese system who are cashing up on industrial scale fentanyl production.
Syrian Assad family now makes more money on captagon than they were doing before the war from all their businesses.
Putin Vladimir, the Russian president, made his early fortune on providing legal cover to drug trade in Saint Petersburg, and later delved into the business himself. Russia now runs a state business of drug smuggling through its military missions abroad, and diplomatic missions.
And of course, most famously, Great Britain used to be the biggest narcostate in history. Fortunes of many modern day British elites were built in these times.
> It also seems like the Taliban have chilled out a bit, since we're not seeing widescale reprisals.
Yeah, all those people are totally safe now. /s
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/18/cia_death_squads_afg...
"The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way"
"I also assured Ghani that U.S. support for the people of Afghanistan will endure"
"I intend to maintain our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, and we are coordinating closely with our international partners in order to continue to secure the international airport"
"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."
"The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
The proper order to pull out is to:
1. Remove the diplomats, embassy staff, translators and other Afghani helpers who were promised safety in return of helping the Americans first.
2. Remove the military equipment - guns, drones, choppers, humvees etc second so that it doesn't fall in the Taliban's hands. At least destroy these equipment if it can't be logistically brought back. Destroy the bases so Taliban can't use them.
3. Lastly pull out the droops as all the important soft targets have already been taken out.
These 3 should have been done in winter before May (original deal was for May) because the Taliban has problems in the winter weather.
Instead of this order, they did the exact opposite. US sat on its ass, didn't remove the soft targets or even take care of those who helped the US. US just pulled out the troops and we ended up with videos of Afghanis running and falling off of aeroplanes and Taliban getting hold of humvees and choppers. And since summer time is when Taliban is at its easiest to move around, the airports have also been taken over. And now to take out the soft targets, they have sent 9000 troops back in along with the UK. The Afghanis who had helped Americans for 2 decades got abandoned and are now gonna get killed by the Taliban.
* Diplomats -- needed to show support for the government we put in place until it fell. It was always going to fall, so there was always going to be a scramble to get them out. This dynamic has happened before and it will happen again. It's a function of diplomacy, not planning.
* Afghani Allies -- we have to draw the line somewhere at who we evacuate, the line was always going to leave some people out who thought they should be evacuated, and that was always going to be a tragedy. The tragedy is a function of line drawing, not planning.
* Equipment -- we left equipment for the Afghani government. We could have taken it or destroyed it, but that would have been a vote of no confidence in the government we notionally supported, so diplomacy says we leave it and the taliban gets it. Again a function of diplomacy, not planning.
If you try to throw planning and resources at problems that are actually fundamental, what happens is that you announce a troop surge and then 8 years later your presidency is over and you are no closer to leaving Afghanistan.
The complain is that current line is roughly "no one". And the people there had not had even time to prepare, organize hiding places or run away.
Collaborating with America should not come with a promise of a Green Card. It sets up conflicting motivations - if the 'nation building' fails, the collaborators can bug out to a much better country anyway.