Meanwhile In Afghanistan

[Stuart Galbraith]

As for negativity, my Grandfather was liberated from a German POW camps by Americans. I still appreciate the sacrifice that allowed that to happen, but then I'm not the one suggesting fighting WW2 was a bad American investment, as more than a few on this site have.

This narrative that says America should withdraw from the world has greased the rails for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Get used to the stench of surrender and appeasement is my advice. It's Iraq next.

[JWB]

13 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Get used to the stench of surrender and appeasement is my advice. It's Iraq next.

Are you claiming some country is going to invade and conquer Iraq?

[Detonable]

7 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

As for negativity, my Grandfather was liberated from a German POW camps by Americans. I still appreciate the sacrifice that allowed that to happen, but then I'm not the one suggesting fighting WW2 was a bad American investment, as more than a few on this site have.

This narrative that says America should withdraw from the world has greased the rails for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Get used to the stench of surrender and appeasement is my advice. It's Iraq next.

  Or Syria. Can’t say which is first. It’s pretty much the Democrats platform, so get used to it.  Intervention by the US overseas is now colonialism. 
  Remember, the US is the world’s worst country, founded on white men’s oppression of people of color. 
  

[JWB]

Be careful what you want...............

Paywalled; try incog mode:

After jubilation, Pakistan faces dilemma as Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan inspires religious militants

Quote

Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, applauded Afghans for tearing free of the “shackles of slavery.” His political opponents, including leaders of Islamist parties, congratulated the Taliban for its “historic victory” over American imperialism. A half-dozen retired Pakistani army generals publicly celebrated. So did extremist groups that are sworn enemies of Pakistan’s generals and government.

 

But beneath the widespread jubilation, Pakistan is beginning to reckon with the destabilizing effects washing across the Afghan border. The Taliban’s dramatic victory not only has galvanized terrorist groups waging a bloody insurgency inside Pakistan, but it has also buoyed hard-line religious parties that seek to reshape Pakistan in a more fundamentalist Islamist image. The result, say analysts and current and former Pakistani and U.S. officials, is a renewed dilemma for a Pakistani military establishment that has sought since the late 1970s to strategically harness — but also carefully contain — the combustible rise of religious fervor in the country.  In a park in Karachi, Maulana Fazl-Ur Rehman, a political opposition leader who supports the Taliban but disavows violent struggle inside Pakistan, cited the Taliban victory as he called for an electoral “revolution” to oust Khan. On Thursday, an even more conservative politician, Maulana Hamid ul Haq — the son of a Sunni cleric known as the “father of the Taliban” — told his followers that the Taliban had established “unmatched peace and security in Afghanistan,” proved the shortcomings of democracy, and should inspire a similar “hard struggle to have a true Islamic system in Pakistan,” according to a statement distributed by Haq’s group.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/05/pakistan-taliban-afghanistan/?utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou&utm_content=readinghistory_Asia__position2

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 minutes ago, JWB said:

Are you claiming some country is going to invade and conquer Iraq?

Well as far as invade, you are about 16 years behind the curve.

https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/iran-dossier/iran-19-06-ch-4-iraq

The operations and deployment of the Iranian-backed militias across Iraq have served several purposes: countering real threats (such as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL), entrenching the militias and meeting Iran’s security objectives. Often these objectives have aligned with those of the Iraqi state, and at times overlapped with the United States’ goals. By embedding themselves in the emerging security structure of the Iraqi state, these militias provide Iran with significant security and political benefits beyond the neutralisation of rivals. These include the capacity to bog down the US at low cost, create a territorial corridor between Iran and Lebanon, and ensure that Iraqi territory will not be used to threaten Iran’s sovereignty.

 

America fought in 1991 to ensure one state did not dominate the middle east oil supply.  Withdrawing from Iraq, again, could allow Iran to do that at zero cost. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

3 minutes ago, JWB said:

Be careful what you want...............

Paywalled; try incog mode:

After jubilation, Pakistan faces dilemma as Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan inspires religious militants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/05/pakistan-taliban-afghanistan/?utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou&utm_content=readinghistory_Asia__position2

I can't even take satisfaction from it. The only thing worse than the Taliban dominating Afghanistan is the Taliban dominating Pakistan too. Pashtuns with the atomic bomb is a Tom Clancy  plot device.

 

[ex2cav]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well as far as invade, you are about 16 years behind the curve.

https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/iran-dossier/iran-19-06-ch-4-iraq

The operations and deployment of the Iranian-backed militias across Iraq have served several purposes: countering real threats (such as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL), entrenching the militias and meeting Iran’s security objectives. Often these objectives have aligned with those of the Iraqi state, and at times overlapped with the United States’ goals. By embedding themselves in the emerging security structure of the Iraqi state, these militias provide Iran with significant security and political benefits beyond the neutralisation of rivals. These include the capacity to bog down the US at low cost, create a territorial corridor between Iran and Lebanon, and ensure that Iraqi territory will not be used to threaten Iran’s sovereignty.

 

America fought in 1991 to ensure one state did not dominate the middle east oil supply.  Withdrawing from Iraq, again, could allow Iran to do that at zero cost. 

I don't know about that. The political situation is way different in Iraq than the Stan. Any "pullout" would not be the same. In  any case, it is not likely the Iranians would march across the border, which is what they would have to do. They might have political influence, to some extant they already have that. 

[Adam Peter]

1 hour ago, JWB said:

Be careful what you want...............

Paywalled; try incog mode:

After jubilation, Pakistan faces dilemma as Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan inspires religious militants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/05/pakistan-taliban-afghanistan/?utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou&utm_content=readinghistory_Asia__position2

It is like a father with a boy grown up. Till now they were the source of everything, now the Taliban has own sources, and own aims and plans will follow.

[Stuart Galbraith]

22 minutes ago, ex2cav said:

I don't know about that. The political situation is way different in Iraq than the Stan. Any "pullout" would not be the same. In  any case, it is not likely the Iranians would march across the border, which is what they would have to do. They might have political influence, to some extant they already have that. 

When we pulled out last time, the result was ISIS forming. It seems not unreasonable to expect this time for Iranian presence to rise, which for Israel and Saudi Arabia are probably as bad. They don't need to match across the border, anymore than the Taliban did. They are already there.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result, withdrawal is an insane risk that isn't worth the fairly negligible cost. So why do it? Because that's what US politics demand apparently.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Stuart Galbraith

[NickM]

1 hour ago, ex2cav said:

I don't know about that. The political situation is way different in Iraq than the Stan. Any "pullout" would not be the same. In  any case, it is not likely the Iranians would march across the border, which is what they would have to do. They might have political influence, to some extant they already have that. 

That would imply the Tallywhackers will heed the 'thrice cursed Persian Shia Heretics(tm)'; perhaps the Uzbeks and Tajiks will be prone to influence==and no doubt from there, they'll be prone to getting sucked into the subsequent conflict.

[rmgill]

13 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Ryan, when has NATO conducted operations without US consent, and that didn't benefit the US?

The strongest cases can be made about Yugoslavia and Libya; compared to all the other wars in which the US pissed away treasure, those were pretty cheap.

Yugoslavia was MORE of a benefit to Europe than it was to the US. So too Libya. Iraq is arguably equally so. It's a mutual aid and defense pact. It wasn't looking like the USSR was going to invade the US for the past 50 odd years of cold war. Not a lot of NATO bases in North America other than for Training. And NORAD is a somewhat separate organization. 

 

13 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Yes, it cost you operating jets, tanker plans, AWACSes, spy satellites. But that's not why you procured them. The spy satellites aren't in orbit because NATO said "oooh, we sure could need some". They are national assets of the US, and their data are shared with partners on a "need to know" basis (IOW, not at all unless it serves the interests of the US).

Right. And if you're supposed to carry some sort of capability yet you don't. How are you contributing to common defense of the alliance? 

 

13 hours ago, Ssnake said:

 

Maybe you're of the opinion that the US shouldn't want all these things. But that's a question that the US needs to answer internally.

I'm happy to have them. But, I'm tired of Europe telling us how to use our stuff when they can barely scrape up the Euros to pay for their own. This is part of a larger geopoliticall issue. Again, it's like you and your friends getting rides from the one friend who has a car and he's constantly being henpecked about how he's taking the wrong route, didn't play the right music etc, and some of the folks along for the ride can barely chip in for gas let alone snacks on the road trip. Eventually the dude who owns the car is going to get irked at the hen pecking. We're there now. 

 

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Pointing out the contradictions in the US' positions is now "negativity"? Call me a member of Team Nagging Nabobs, then. 🤪

The contradictions? 💩

We pay for the lions share of the capability and force projection. We're constantly bitched at because we're doing it wrong. The Euro-wenies bitched up a storm about President Trump and were whole hog for Biden. The Right leaning types here took a lot of heat for that Trump support.
Now you and we have Biden and this catestrophic pullout and all of the results of the implosion. And now you're unhappy with Biden when we of the right were unhappy with him and we were told we were wrong. 

NOW you want to complain about contradictions? 🤡

If we did Military capability like you fear we will, in the Jeffersonian mode of foreign policy and you know, the way that most of Europe does with regards to events over seas, suddenly we're the bad guys because we're going to take our car and go home and suddenly you have to pay for your own car or cab rides? Contradictions? Really? 


I'm fine with NATO. But only if the NATO Europeans pull their bloody weight. That's it. That means they can move their troops to regions if needs require. Germany having their own A400 fleet now is nice. It's a good step. They needed to have strategic transport decades ago. The UK needs to have more than they have now. All of this is useful both for actual honest to god military defense and stand up humanitarian aid like after the Indian Ocean Tsunami relief. 

If they can't pull their weight, especially if they're the larger economies, they need to put up or shut up. If I'm getting a free meal from a friend, you know what I don't do? I don't bitch that they're not serving T-bone Steak instead of Goulash. 
 

 

[Ssnake]

Just now, rmgill said:

Now you and we have Biden and this catestrophic pullout and all of the results of the implosion. And now you're unhappy with Biden when we of the right were unhappy with him and we were told we were wrong. 

NOW you want to complain about contradictions? 🤡

I'm sure you have all the posts at the ready where I endorsed Biden, before or after the presidential elections. Please, go ahead and post them all. Heck, post one.

[Nobu]

4 hours ago, Adam Peter said:

It is like a father with a boy grown up. Till now they were the source of everything, now the Taliban has own sources, and own aims and plans will follow.

If those aims and plans do not meet with the Pakistani father's approval, it's not going to matter how grown up his boy named Taliban is, before or after the Pakistani honor killing.

[rmgill]

8 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I'm sure you have all the posts at the ready where I endorsed Biden, before or after the presidential elections. Please, go ahead and post them all. Heck, post one.

You specifically, no, the larger block of Euros, we've got the whole Trump thread to go to. 

Shifting to the NATO thread. 
 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, rmgill said:

Yugoslavia was MORE of a benefit to Europe than it was to the US. So too Libya. Iraq is arguably equally so. It's a mutual aid and defense pact. It wasn't looking like the USSR was going to invade the US for the past 50 odd years of cold war. Not a lot of NATO bases in North America other than for Training. And NORAD is a somewhat separate organization. 

 

Right. And if you're supposed to carry some sort of capability yet you don't. How are you contributing to common defense of the alliance? 

 

I'm happy to have them. But, I'm tired of Europe telling us how to use our stuff when they can barely scrape up the Euros to pay for their own. This is part of a larger geopoliticall issue. Again, it's like you and your friends getting rides from the one friend who has a car and he's constantly being henpecked about how he's taking the wrong route, didn't play the right music etc, and some of the folks along for the ride can barely chip in for gas let alone snacks on the road trip. Eventually the dude who owns the car is going to get irked at the hen pecking. We're there now. 

 

We have had a thread on this grate site about Stay Behind parties setup in Alaska. For a while It certainly did look like invasion was a possibility, probably more so than a thermonuclear wargasm we were expecting by the 1980's.

Im inclined to think you get the wars you dont prepare for. The ones we did, which include 40 odd years of cold war, we didnt get, or at least not in the way we feared. Which as my father once pertiently pointed out, defence is the insurance policy you never want to pay out. If it pays out, you probably didnt spend enough on it, or thoughtfully enough, in the first place.

Once again, if europe cannot do things independently, the US has a responsibility to assess why that is. NATO converted to increasingly a light infantry force to fight the war on terror, at US request. Yes, even humble Georgia, not even in NATO, stumped up a light infantry brigade. And now you complain NATO cant do anything outside its region, or defend itself against Russia a damn. Because this is what you wanted. It came through for you. Is it our fault NATO is an organization wired primarily to delivering the results America wants?

Maybe the problem is not NATO, but America no longer knows what it wants from it?

[Stuart Galbraith]

So anyone expecting a 'new' Taliban, pretty much got the answer about how new it is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58455826

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have shot dead a policewoman in a provincial city, witnesses have told the BBC.

The woman, named in local media as Banu Negar, was killed at the family home in front of relatives in Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province.

The killing comes amid increasing reports of escalating repression of women in Afghanistan.

The Taliban told the BBC they had no involvement in Negar's death and are investigating the incident.

Spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said: "We are aware of the incident and I am confirming that the Taliban have not killed her, our investigation is ongoing."

He added that the Taliban had already announced an amnesty for people who worked for the previous administration, and put Negar's murder down to "personal enmity or something else".

Details of the incident are still sketchy as many in Firozkoh fear retribution if they speak out. But three sources have told the BBC that the Taliban beat and shot Negar dead in front of her husband and children on Saturday.

Relatives supplied graphic images showing blood spattered on a wall in the corner of a room and a body, the face heavily disfigured.

The family say Negar, who worked at the local prison, was eight months pregnant.

Three gunmen arrived at the house on Saturday and searched it before tying members of the family up, relatives say.

The intruders were heard speaking Arabic, a witness said.

 

And they dragged her sons outside, and made them watch them killing her. Pour encourager les autres I guess.

[JasonJ]

On 8/25/2021 at 10:08 AM, JasonJ said:

The C-2 arrived at Pakistan. A 4th aircraft got sent, a B-777-300ER government plane.

They evacuated only one Japanese and fourteen Afghans. About 500 that had worked in Japanese related activities are now at the mercy of the Taliban.

Quote

With the U.S. military pullout and the evacuation of foreigners and vulnerable Afghans from Kabul completed earlier this month, many locals who have worked for Japan but were left behind in Afghanistan are filled with feelings of anger and hopelessness, they said.

One such Afghan said he lives day to day in a heightened state of vigilance -- even locking his bedroom door when he sleeps -- for fear of his safety under the harsh rule of the Taliban who have returned to power after 20 years.

The man, who requested anonymity, had been involved in Japan's aid activities for many years and is one of some 500 Afghans, including local staff of the Japanese Embassy and the Japan International Cooperation Agency and their families, whom the Japanese government had said it would evacuate.

But he was unable to leave the war-ravaged country as Japan's Self-Defense Forces were ordered to withdraw on Aug. 31 after having evacuated just one Japanese and 14 Afghans at the request of the United States.

"I know it couldn't be helped but I'm upset," he said about having been left behind.

On Aug. 26, he boarded a bus in Kabul and headed to Hamid Karzai International Airport. But an Islamic State group affiliate called ISIS-K fired rockets at the airport on the day and the SDF flight he was supposed to take was canceled.

Even though he was instructed to wait by the Japanese government, he never heard from it again before the SDF was ordered to pull out.

"If I couldn't go, they should've told me so," he said, adding that he now feels trapped.

Neighbors found he was seeking to leave the country and he is afraid of what might happen if the Taliban learn of his plan, he said.

Another local, who asked to remain anonymous, used to work at the JICA Afghanistan Office in Kabul, which administered Japan's official aid program in the country.

As he sought to flee, he requested a Japanese Embassy staffer to include him in the list of people to be evacuated by Japan. But the staffer only replied, "I have no authority to decide on this."

His father had been beaten by the Taliban during its former rule because he did not grow his beard, the local said. The Islamist group's fighters have assaulted citizens since they seized almost full control of the country on Aug. 15.

"I was really disappointed when I realized that Japan wasn't willing to evacuate us," he said.

While the Taliban have made reconciliatory gestures, there is no guarantee that they will be accompanied by actions.

Meanwhile, the terrorist activities of Islamic State extremists are increasing, and there are concerns about a collision between them and the Taliban.

A local journalist said, "This withdrawal is a rout of the U.S. military. Our country faces turmoil."

The Japanese government has said it had submitted to the Taliban via the U.S. military a list of people seeking to evacuate on SDF airplanes, which was intended to enable them to pass through Taliban checkpoints on the way to the airport.

Now, however, the Afghans on that list are trembling in fear.

One of the locals, who worked at the embassy, said, "I believe I'll be able to evacuate. The Japanese Embassy will do something."

But contrary to his words, his tone was angry

 

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/09/fcc7fed626ac-afghan-locals-left-behind-by-japan-feel-anger-hopelessness.html

Edited September 7, 2021 by JasonJ

[KV7]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

So anyone expecting a 'new' Taliban, pretty much got the answer about how new it is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58455826

From what is reported it likely wasn't the Taliban.

Arabic speakers (very few Afghans speak Arabic) committing an atrocity when the Taliban want to soften their image would suggest the attackers are more likely to be foreign militants of some form, maybe IS-K or similar. Possibly they did fight alongside the Taliban but I doubt they were acting under Taliban command here.

Edited September 7, 2021 by KV7

[KV7]

BTW, the Panjshir 'resistance' is now basically finished, after a rather quick rout.

[Ivanhoe]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Im inclined to think you get the wars you dont prepare for. The ones we did, which include 40 odd years of cold war, we didnt get, or at least not in the way we feared. Which as my father once pertiently pointed out, defence is the insurance policy you never want to pay out. If it pays out, you probably didnt spend enough on it, or thoughtfully enough, in the first place.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, folks were wanting their "peace dividend" by eliminating heavy ground forces from the USian DoD. Never going to have a set-piece battle, they said. Just in time for ODS...

Your statement aligns with the whole asymmetric warfare thing, but I also think it aligns with the cynical concept of reality choosing to periodically humiliate the self-appointed and lauded experts.

[Stuart Galbraith]

31 minutes ago, KV7 said:

BTW, the Panjshir 'resistance' is now basically finished, after a rather quick rout.

Well that is certainly the narrative put out by the Taliban, which I would be cautious of. The ONLY footage we have seen is the conquering of the  regional capital. Whats notable is that they are NOT showing footage up in the mountains, particularly of lots of dead resistance members.

You only have to look at a map of the Panjshir to see why a reported force of 3000 Taliban is pissing in the wind trying to occupy it.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, Ivanhoe said:

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, folks were wanting their "peace dividend" by eliminating heavy ground forces from the USian DoD. Never going to have a set-piece battle, they said. Just in time for ODS...

Your statement aligns with the whole asymmetric warfare thing, but I also think it aligns with the cynical concept of reality choosing to periodically humiliate the self-appointed and lauded experts.

Well there was certainly a lot of very smart, well educated people who fell on their face over Vietnam. And these were the same guys who probably saved the world from nuclear war in October 1962.

As far as heavy forces, the British Army is split between those whom want to turn the British Army into what are  essentially raiding forces, just the thing to win the War on Terror (tm). There are others whom point to the requirement of at least facing up to fighting in Eastern Europe, seeing we are there. Its far from certain whom will be victorious, but the cynic in me suspects its going to be the cheaper option.

[KV7]

I am not ruling out some remnants hiding in the mountains, but their attempt to hold a territory has been defeated.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, thats what the Soviets said. 9 times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjshir_offensives_(Soviet–Afghan_War)

Yes, it may well be true, but I want to hear a more authoritative source than Terry Taliban. Id go outside and check if they said the sky was blue.

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Stuart Galbraith