Afghan government collapse.

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Anyone who thinks this wasn't inevitable is kidding themselves honestly. This was going to happen no matter when the U.S. pulled out.

In fact, it might even have happened without a pullout. The U.S. was already working overtime trying to exaggerate their holdings, and the Taliban was gaining for a few years before 2021.

The Taliban had too much popular support, the central government is too incompetent, pedophilic, corrupt, and never held much rural land for long (and Afghanistan is a majority rural country). Nation-building would've been far, far too expensive.

Time for the infighting to start after Kabul falls

I'm just glad American tax money isn't wasted anymore. Thank you Biden and Trump for pulling out.


In other news, some truly dire statistics about Afghanistan are about to be made public (or maybe all statistics will simply stop).

For the last twenty years, nearly all development indicators coming out of Afghanistan have been based on surveys occurring solely within the most urban, developed parts of Afghanistan, as surveyors wouldn't go into rural Taliban-controlled territory. In many cases, no adjustments were being made to account for the rural non-surveyed provinces. This is the main reason Afghanistan's development indicators look like they're improving so much.

It's like taking education, development, and health data of Massachusetts and making it stand as data for the entire United States.

Infant mortality, fertility, and illiteracy are all much higher than what the projections show,  while the median age and life expectancy are much lower.

The same thing happened in FATA after it was integrated into KPK on the Pakistani side of the Durand line.

Does anyone think there's a small chance its a feinted retreat?

The collapse is way too fast and arguably the best way to take out an insurgency is to group them up?

Unfortunately no.

The Afghan army has zero morale and is made up primarily of drug addicts and opportunists at this point. This is what's making it so easy for the Taliban to sweep the land (on top of their already existing connections with local governmental figures and their vast sway among the rural areas, which hold most of the country's population).

They were always waiting in the shadows, ready to pounce, and at this point, all Afghan soldiers want to do is get out with their lives, even if it means living under the Taliban.

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The worst affect of this in America is that it's going to make the neocon movement popular again, using ever more tax money to fuel the military-industrial complex and simply delay the inevitable.

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If the USA is smart they should move quickly to form a relationship with the new Taliban regime as there is no alternative to the Taliban in the medium term.   Their goal should be try to lock out as much PRC-Russia influence over the Taliban as possible.

To think that there is someone unironically advocating this from the American perspective. Such a move would establish, once and for all and in the eyes of the world, that American foreign policy is about submission to American interests, period. All of the sanctimonious propaganda about "freedom", "democracy", and "human rights" is permanently revealed to be a complete sham.

This was revealed to the rest of the world long ago

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Image Link

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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.

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.

You can see why Afghans detest the Kabul regime so much


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).

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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.

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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.

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Another story which hasn't really gotten any coverage on this thread has to do with not only the US Supplied weapons in which the Taliban seized from ANA bases, but ALSO which weapons might have ended up in the hands of the current Anti-Taliban Military Forces (Not including ISIS / Daesh in the mix).

A few highlights for those of you not able to get behind the paywall, which I can do as a paid subscriber:

As the Taliban swept into power across Afghanistan, it captured many millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment that had once belonged to Afghan forces.

Footage from areas captured by the militant group shows bedraggled but celebratory fighters in control of U.S.-made guns, armored vehicles and even Blackhawk helicopters and drones. Beyond the flashy hardware, experts are also concerned that the extremist group would now be in charge of sophisticated technology, including biometric devices used by the U.S. military to identify Afghans who assisted Americans and allies.


...

Before it was captured by the Taliban, the Afghan air force had more than 40 operational U.S.-made MD-530 helicopters, the report said, and more than 30 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. There were also more than 23 usable A-29 Super Tucano attack planes, some of which had been upgraded to drop laser-guided bombs.

...

Open source analysts Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans have tracked videos and images released by forces loyal to the insurgents and recorded over 30 pieces of equipment that now belongs to what they dubbed the “Taliban Air Force,” ranging from at least one A-29 Super Tucano to seven Insitu ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — made by Boeing.

Four Blackhawk helicopters, if not more, appeared to be in Taliban control. At a cost of $10 million each, it represents an expensive catch.

....

Some of the more expensive U.S. equipment appear to have been disabled or removed by departing Afghan officials and forces.

Mitzer said that video evidence showed that a number of aircraft, including three Blackhawk helicopters, had been taken to Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, where anti-Taliban forces have gathered under the leadership of Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, the son of late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Uzbekistan claimed on Monday that around 22 planes and 24 helicopters from Afghanistan had been forced to land after entering Uzbek airspace. Dempsey said that satellite imagery supported these claims, which if accurate would represent around a quarter of all Afghan Air Force aircraft.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/20/us-weapons-taliban-afghanistan/

I don't want to exceed quote % on the article, but definitely worth a look for those of you who have a limited number of free WP articles per month interested in the topic.

If you don't have any free WP articles, then just click this link.

  Enjoy