Afghan government collapse.

[jaichind]

What is the plan to get Afghan refugees out of Kabul now that the Taliban has effectively taken over?

This should be paramount and Biden definitely should've planned his withdrawal better to allow for refugees to enter the United States.

I do not think there is a plan.  Taliban now control all international crossing so the only way out is by plane.  The Taliban already said that all foreigners are free to leave but made no such promises for Afgan citizens.

[jaichind]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3479370/brit-stuck-kabul-afghanistan-holiday-worried-pals/

"IDIOT ABROAD Brit stuck in Kabul after going to Afghanistan on HOLIDAY tells worried pals ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle’"

It seems he googled “the most dangerous cities to visit” for his vacation plans.  I guess he got what he wanted.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You have that backwards. Bacha Bazi became common again (and has been common for the last two decades) after the Taliban fell because the new American-aligned Kabul government allowed for it, while it was previously having been banned by the Taliban. Wealthy corrupt pedophilic warlords had too much influence in the new bureaucracy.

Well, no, I'm referring to multiple reports of the forced marriages of girls as young as twelve (a twelve year old is a child, would you not agree?) to Taliban militiamen in recently captured territory. This would conventionally be described as the use of rape as a weapon of war, because that is what it is.

While the Taliban isn't a good thing, the American-backed Kabul regime hasn't performed very well either.
We can't pretend that Afghanistan was on track to be a developed country in 2025 (despite the trillions spent there).

When did I argue any differently?

[_.]

You have that backwards. Bacha Bazi became common again (and has been common for the last two decades) after the Taliban fell because the new American-aligned Kabul government allowed for it, while it was previously having been banned by the Taliban. Wealthy corrupt pedophilic warlords had too much influence in the new bureaucracy.

Well, no, I'm referring to multiple reports of the forced marriages of girls as young as twelve (a twelve year old is a child, would you not agree?) to Taliban militiamen in recently captured territory. This would conventionally be described as the use of rape as a weapon of war, because that is what it is.

While the Taliban isn't a good thing, the American-backed Kabul regime hasn't performed very well either.
We can't pretend that Afghanistan was on track to be a developed country in 2025 (despite the trillions spent there).

When did I argue any differently?

Ah, misunderstood. Thank you for clarifying

In either case, these child rapes have already been going on for a while now.

[lfromnj]

You have that backwards. Bacha Bazi became common again (and has been common for the last two decades) after the Taliban fell because the new American-aligned Kabul government allowed for it, while it was previously having been banned by the Taliban. Wealthy corrupt pedophilic warlords had too much influence in the new bureaucracy.

Well, no, I'm referring to multiple reports of the forced marriages of girls as young as twelve (a twelve year old is a child, would you not agree?) to Taliban militiamen in recently captured territory. This would conventionally be described as the use of rape as a weapon of war, because that is what it is.

While the Taliban isn't a good thing, the American-backed Kabul regime hasn't performed very well either.
We can't pretend that Afghanistan was on track to be a developed country in 2025 (despite the trillions spent there).

When did I argue any differently?

You said Mass ____ have already started implying they just started right now.

[Mopsus]

What a disaster.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

There had to have been some way to stall the Taliban’s advance long enough to get these people out, even with a fixed withdrawal date. Failure to do that has got to be one of the single biggest US strategic blunders in decades.

[NOVA Green]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3479370/brit-stuck-kabul-afghanistan-holiday-worried-pals/

"IDIOT ABROAD Brit stuck in Kabul after going to Afghanistan on HOLIDAY tells worried pals ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle’"

It seems he googled “the most dangerous cities to visit” for his vacation plans.  I guess he got what he wanted.

Somehow The Dead Kennedys: "Holiday in Cambodia" song springs to mind as appropriate for this story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6NOsluHYg

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You said Mass ____ have already started implying they just started right now.

I wrote:

By the way, the massacres, executions, lynchings and rapes (including of children) have already started. Worse in some parts of the country than others - very bad in Kandahar it seems. It isn't clear quite how centrally directed this is, but certainly no one towards the top of the Taliban is stopping it.

The implication of which - as should be immediately clear to anyone with a reading age over ten - is that these very bad things are happening as part of a consistent pattern of political punishment in territory newly gained by the Taliban. This strikes me as being fairly relevant information for this thread? This really isn't a subject about which trying to act like a smart alec is a very wise move and it reflects poorly on your character that you thought otherwise.

[jaichind]

This was an amazing run the Taliban had in what is really a political victory.  What the Taliban seems to have done to a massive leveraged political buyout in a recursive process of bigger and bigger buyouts. What they seems to have done is to make deals with various tribal leaders for them to defect to Taliban.  Then they levered that into bigger deals with higher level government commanders by convincing them that the Taliban could win and they better be on the right side.  These defections in term really created the impression of an unstoppable Taliban which turn allowed for even bigger deals with even higher level military and political leaders (like governors and army corp commanders.)  All this then ended up with the unilateral surrender of Kabul.  This entire process did involve some fighting but they were minor compared to the scale of territories that changed hands to Taliban.   

This appears be an accurate reflection...

Here are a few MSM articles which explore this topic in greater detail:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

It sort of shows that just like the financial system, the political system also runs on confidence and once you take that way the system become very fragile and will collapse right away.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/IChotiner/status/1427024337760964610

[jaichind]

Watching the blame game is actually pretty funny.

Biden is blaming Trump and the now defunct Afghanistan government
Trump is blaming Biden
Defunct Afghanistan Prez Ghani is blaming both Biden and Trump
Members of the defunct government are blaming Ghani
And various USA allies are blaming USA

[jaichind]

What a disaster.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

There had to have been some way to stall the Taliban’s advance long enough to get these people out, even with a fixed withdrawal date. Failure to do that has got to be one of the single biggest US strategic blunders in decades.

Looking back I think what Biden should have done is actually just carry out the May 1st deadline.  That would have in theory locked the Tailban into talks with the Ghani government for a while.  The end games would most likely been the same but those talks would have provided the time for various people that fear the Taliban to get out.  This Sept 11th deadline gave the impression that up until Sept 11th everything will be fine.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Watching the blame game is actually pretty funny.

Biden is blaming Trump and the now defunct Afghanistan government
Trump is blaming Biden
Defunct Afghanistan Prez Ghani is blaming both Biden and Trump
Members of the defunct government are blaming Ghani
And various USA allies are blaming USA

Everybody is to blame.

[Mr. Morden]

What is the plan to get Afghan refugees out of Kabul now that the Taliban has effectively taken over?

Well...

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1427017492183109633

[The Mikado]

What a disaster.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

There had to have been some way to stall the Taliban’s advance long enough to get these people out, even with a fixed withdrawal date. Failure to do that has got to be one of the single biggest US strategic blunders in decades.

Honestly, I don't think there's a single national American politician in either party who was brave enough to call for mass resettlement of tens/hundred of thousands of Afghans (or Iraqis, earlier) in the US due to domestic political concerns. I certainly remember this exact same argument about the people helping us in Iraq and Afghanistan being accepted as refugees into the US dating back to the George W Bush years, continuing through Obama and Trump, and now into Biden. None of those four presidents actually wanted the political issues of resettling six digits worth of Afghans in the United States.

This is obviously a black mark on Biden's career, but if we'd been steadily taking ten thousand Afghans a year since 2007 or so, we wouldn't need to be in this situation now.

[NOVA Green]

This is so heartbreaking to me. Biden campaigned as a moderate but on this issue he tried to pander to the anti-war left too much and rushed America's withdrawal from Afghanistan. This is so embarrassing, an unmitigated disaster.

One thing is clear though, the Afghan "army" are some of the the most useless army ever.

Biden didnt end the war because of DSA and left wing podcasters calling him an imperialist murderer. Normie Democrats such as unionized schoolteachers and black church ladies oppose the war now or at the very least could care less.

Additionally, it must be stressed that this outcome was virtually inevitable since the US first became directly involved in combat activities (20) Years ago, and possibly with root causes that stretch back almost (40) years ago where the US was involved in military activities in Afghanistan as part of a proxy war against the Soviet Union.

That is part of the reason why I was one of about (300-500) demonstrators in a small down-state Oregon town, which spontaneously marched against the War in Afghanistan when the US first began military activities following 9/11.

Unfortunately, the US mission in Afghanistan (along with significant support from various NATO allies) post 9/11 was almost bound to fail because of not only strategic miscalculations, but perhaps more fundamentally the attempt to shoe-horn in a political model which had no real historical precedent within the Country.

I would argue that there might have been a brief window of opportunity between the 9/11 "invasion" / "intervention", "liberation" (Or whatever terms people might find most agreeable) but that was gone shortly after the Bush Jr. administration started to shift the vast mobilization of the US War Machine from Afghanistan to Iraq, and effectively traded what goodwill might have been built up, for a steadily decreasing security situation for the the Afghan population who were either hostile towards or generally opposed to the Taliban movement, while meanwhile the Taliban were able to reform their military positions within Afghanistan proper (as well as other formations such as the Haqqani network) from various "rear bases" both within Afghanistan, as well as neighboring regions within Pakistan.

More personal note:

When I lived in East Berlin back in early '94, my closest friend Farouk, who lived in the same Tenement Building in prenzlauer berg which I did was an Afghan refugee from Kabul with Tajik background, was an asylum seeker (Asylbewerber), who had fled the Civil War when Hekmatyar's forced were bombarding Kabul with heavy artillery.

Over almost daily games of chess, which would generally involve tea/coffee in the daytime and beer and "European Cigarettes" at Night in the plethora of underground establishments which proliferated during that time, we would share stories of our lives coming from two different countries, but both strangers and foreigners (Ausländer) in Germany.

He didn't talk much about his family, except to say that some of them had died during the Afghan Civil War, as well as resistance against the Soviet Occupation.

As a student a Kabul University with high grades, he was a natural candidate for German asylum seeker status so long as he maintained his University grades, etc....

Still, in order to make ends meet, like many of the rest of the Afghan diaspora in Berlin, he would work odd-jobs in the Construction Industry (off the books), in order to be able to send money home to his family members left behind.

I still remember his descriptions of how towards the final days of Soviet Occupation his description about how the Nightly final call to Prayer who bring out record numbers to the rooftops of the apartment complexes as a way of sending a final message to the Soviet Occupiers.

We lost touch not too long after I moved away from Germany, and I wonder what became of him.

Did the German authorities deport him back to Afghanistan, as they did so many others?

If so what happened to him after the Taliban took control in '96?

Anyways--- apologies for my personal segue, and I do wish all of the best for the normal Afghan Civilians who as in most war zones are effectively the ones which suffer the most, while meanwhile only a small minority of the population are active combatants on either side.

[jaichind]

All these videos on social media of Taliban soldiers in the various palaces of warlords this last week is a brilliant PR tactic.  It first crosses the psychological barrier that the Taliban are now in charge and the old ruling elite are clearly gone since they cannot even protect their own homes.  Second it shows off the extravagance and corruption  of the old ruling elite.

[Crumpets]

800 people on one plane!

For context, a Boeing 747 seats about 600 and has about a 15% larger wingspan (not a perfect analogy, but it gives you an idea).

https://twitter.com/MilMonWorld/status/1427025918652977156

I think this audio recording is someone in the Air Force relaying the info:
https://m.soundcloud.com/metal57/rch-871

[Omega21]

Step 1: Go in and push out the Taliban
Step 2: Stay 20 years and invest x Billions or Trillion
Step 3: Announce your withdrawal and watch your investment collapse like a house of cards

Must be fun paying taxes for that

[The Ex-Factor]

What a disaster.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

There had to have been some way to stall the Taliban’s advance long enough to get these people out, even with a fixed withdrawal date. Failure to do that has got to be one of the single biggest US strategic blunders in decades.

Honestly, I don't think there's a single national American politician in either party who was brave enough to call for mass resettlement of tens/hundred of thousands of Afghans (or Iraqis, earlier) in the US due to domestic political concerns. I certainly remember this exact same argument about the people helping us in Iraq and Afghanistan being accepted as refugees into the US dating back to the George W Bush years, continuing through Obama and Trump, and now into Biden. None of those four presidents actually wanted the political issues of resettling six digits worth of Afghans in the United States.

This is obviously a black mark on Biden's career, but if we'd been steadily taking ten thousand Afghans a year since 2007 or so, we wouldn't need to be in this situation now.

Vietnamese Americans have long held a grudge against Biden because he famously was one of the most strident voices against taking in South Vietnamese collaborators with the U.S. government in 1975, famously saying 'The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001 South Vietnamese. Gerald Ford decided that that was immoral and chose to evacuate up to 200,000 refugees. I probably wouldn't be an American today if Biden had had his way in 1975. It also means that I am not surprised by how much this administration has botched this evacuation, particularly of Afghan collaborators at risk of being killed due to their connection to the U.S. The simple explanation, consistent with Biden's track record is that he doesn't care.

As I recently wrote, Biden has a relevant personal history. In April 1975, as a first-term senator, he was an outspoken opponent of using American money and risking Americans’ safety to rescue the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who had bet their lives on American promises. “The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese,” he said in a Senate speech. President Gerald Ford tried to sway Biden by reminding him of the American tradition of welcoming refugees from war and oppression, but Biden was unmoved. Vietnam was a lost cause, and Americans wanted to forget.

As South Vietnam fell, 135,000 endangered Vietnamese were evacuated through the heroic efforts of American officials, military veterans, and private citizens. Ford later said, “To do anything less would, in my opinion, only add moral shame to military humiliation.”

Now I understand the political context in 2021 is different from 1975, and that an influx of Afghan refugees nowadays may be considerably less sympathetic than Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees in 1975. But I do think under a different president than Biden (certainly not under Trump, but under other possible presidents of either party) there may have been a bigger priority placed on making sure there was a better process in place for Afghan resettlement & refugees compared to what is taking place right now, which is basically nothing at all.

EDIT: For anyone looking for a primary source on what was said above, I found it on page 736 of 1393 of the pdf here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/United_States_Congressional_Serial_Set/mh9QAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

Specifically what Biden said in 1975 was - 'I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals - other than perhaps an estimated 1,800 diplomatic personnel assigned to foreign embassies in Saigon. The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese. As I read the language of the bill, the evacuation of Americans in South Vietnam conceivably could be endangered because of the provisions also permitting the evacuation of untold numbers of foreign nationals. The President's representatives inform us that as many as 175,000 South Vietnamese are considered eligible for evacuation.'

[Crumpets]

Can we all just take a second and be thankful that Trump is not on Twitter today to be live-tweeting his reactions and "advice" for all of this?

[Alcibiades]

What a disaster.

https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173

There had to have been some way to stall the Taliban’s advance long enough to get these people out, even with a fixed withdrawal date. Failure to do that has got to be one of the single biggest US strategic blunders in decades.

Honestly, I don't think there's a single national American politician in either party who was brave enough to call for mass resettlement of tens/hundred of thousands of Afghans (or Iraqis, earlier) in the US due to domestic political concerns. I certainly remember this exact same argument about the people helping us in Iraq and Afghanistan being accepted as refugees into the US dating back to the George W Bush years, continuing through Obama and Trump, and now into Biden. None of those four presidents actually wanted the political issues of resettling six digits worth of Afghans in the United States.

This is obviously a black mark on Biden's career, but if we'd been steadily taking ten thousand Afghans a year since 2007 or so, we wouldn't need to be in this situation now.

Vietnamese Americans have long held a grudge against Biden because he famously was one of the most strident voices against taking in South Vietnamese collaborators with the U.S. government in 1975, famously saying 'The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001 South Vietnamese. Gerald Ford decided that that was immoral and chose to evacuate up to 200,000 refugees. I probably wouldn't be an American today if Biden had had his way in 1975. It also means that I am not surprised by how much this administration has botched this evacuation, particularly of Afghan collaborators at risk of being killed due to their connection to the U.S. The simple explanation, consistent with Biden's track record is that he doesn't care.

As I recently wrote, Biden has a relevant personal history. In April 1975, as a first-term senator, he was an outspoken opponent of using American money and risking Americans’ safety to rescue the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who had bet their lives on American promises. “The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese,” he said in a Senate speech. President Gerald Ford tried to sway Biden by reminding him of the American tradition of welcoming refugees from war and oppression, but Biden was unmoved. Vietnam was a lost cause, and Americans wanted to forget.

As South Vietnam fell, 135,000 endangered Vietnamese were evacuated through the heroic efforts of American officials, military veterans, and private citizens. Ford later said, “To do anything less would, in my opinion, only add moral shame to military humiliation.”

Now I understand the political context in 2021 is different from 1975, and that an influx of Afghan refugees nowadays may be considerably less sympathetic than Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees in 1975. But I do think under a different president than Biden (certainly not under Trump, but under other possible presidents of either party) there may have been a bigger priority placed on making sure there was a better process in place for Afghan resettlement & refugees compared to what is taking place right now, which is basically nothing at all.

Wow, I wasn’t aware of this, but this is really illuminating and explains a lot. I’m disgusted with Biden over his refugee policy; easily the lowest point of his presidency so far, just a total and disgraceful lack of basic empathy and a sense of obligation.

[NOVA Green]

800 people on one plane!

For context, a Boeing 747 seats about 600 and has about a 15% larger wingspan (not a perfect analogy, but it gives you an idea).

https://twitter.com/MilMonWorld/status/1427025918652977156

I think this audio recording is someone in the Air Force relaying the info:
https://m.soundcloud.com/metal57/rch-871

Is that real? Do we have any veracity that this is any way an official communication?

I believe the airplane number is identified in the video, but who the hell would be recording this, let along leaking it when it could potentially get into the hands of the "Baddies" in real time, where there still most be a few actionable SAMs floating around from the old dayz, although I believe there is a certain limited life-span when it comes to the Stinger Missiles we gave to the mujahideen back in the days, would have imagined they would no longer be viable max (30) years after we started to dump them in the hands of extremist factions against the former USSR.

[Crumpets]

800 people on one plane!

For context, a Boeing 747 seats about 600 and has about a 15% larger wingspan (not a perfect analogy, but it gives you an idea).

https://twitter.com/MilMonWorld/status/1427025918652977156

I think this audio recording is someone in the Air Force relaying the info:
https://m.soundcloud.com/metal57/rch-871

Is that real? Do we have any veracity that this is any way an official communication?

I believe the airplane number is identified in the video, but who the hell would be recording this, let along leaking it when it could potentially get into the hands of the "Baddies" in real time, where there still most be a few actionable SAMs floating around from the old dayz, although I believe there is a certain limited life-span when it comes to the Stinger Missiles we gave to the mujahideen back in the days, would have imagined they would no longer be viable max (30) years after we started to dump them in the hands of extremist factions against the former USSR.

This is the account I saw it on. They give their source, but I'm not familiar with them:

https://twitter.com/vcdgf555/status/1427038833195950080

[Omega21]

800 people on one plane!

For context, a Boeing 747 seats about 600 and has about a 15% larger wingspan (not a perfect analogy, but it gives you an idea).

https://twitter.com/MilMonWorld/status/1427025918652977156

I think this audio recording is someone in the Air Force relaying the info:
https://m.soundcloud.com/metal57/rch-871

Is that real? Do we have any veracity that this is any way an official communication?

I believe the airplane number is identified in the video, but who the hell would be recording this, let along leaking it when it could potentially get into the hands of the "Baddies" in real time, where there still most be a few actionable SAMs floating around from the old dayz, although I believe there is a certain limited life-span when it comes to the Stinger Missiles we gave to the mujahideen back in the days, would have imagined they would no longer be viable max (30) years after we started to dump them in the hands of extremist factions against the former USSR.

A Stinger is a portable SAMl launcher, useful only against helicopters or aircraft at low altitudes.

As for old equipment, age doesn't necessarily render a system completely useless.

The only F117 (stealth plane) ever shot down was taken down over Yugoslavia by 70s equipment, but it was an actual SAM installation (S125), not a portable launcher, and was manned by professional soldiers who figured out a good frequency for tracking stealth planes, not guerillas.