Afghan government collapse.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The comparison misunderstands the situation anyway. This isn't a case of a single war stretching back twenty years, but several wars and all with different levels of involvement from outside actors, whether Western occupying troops or certain elements in the Pakistani state. It's actually very important to try to understand this from an Afghan perspective.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...and they never held 100% of Afghanistan in the 90s.

They were closer to that figure than people remember: by 2001 they held everything but the Panjshir Valley and parts of Badakhshan.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Worth pointing out that this version of the Taliban is very different from the original in some important ways: they're much more comfortable with the idea of modern governance (there has even been some deeply strange bragging of late about how taxes on businesses are lower in Taliban controlled districts) and even with the concept of 'foreign relations' as something that extends beyond talking to ISI bagmen every so often. They are still spectacularly nasty bastards of course. I suspect that most of this shift is generational.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Has there been a good piece/comment on why the Afghan forces have fallen so quickly? I read that the Army tend to rout or give up a lot quicker than the police do, as the latter are locals and have more of a stake.

Other than e.g. issues with the government's weak to limited legitimacy and so on, one issue is that at a tactical level they have been entirely reliant on a) significant Western air support and b) the maintenance of much of the expensive Western kit they've been given by Western technical experts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lots of claims above that the Taliban enjoy "massive" public support in Afghanistan.

Like a lot of conventional wisdom about Afghanistan it is a view that is dependent on knowing very little about the place, on having never seriously talked to any Afghans and on certain assumptions that are frankly racist. They had a degree of popularity in Pashtun-majority regions in the middle 1990s as they presented an apparent alternative to the chaos of warlordism, but this faded very rapidly as the reality of what their rule meant became apparent. Wars are not exercises in democracy and the Taliban controlling this or that city or district does not mean that locals like them. What is true is that the Ghani 'government' is unpopular and lacks credibility particularly in those parts of the country most naturally hostile to the Taliban. Ghani's poor reputation amongst the smaller ethnic groups has had catastrophic consequences.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The previous Taliban governance was impeded by constant civil war (they've taken almost all of the areas most likely to be hostile to them) and ethnic tensions that have been smoothed over by their opponents being backed by Western outsiders.

The original Taliban had no interest in modern governance and things were as chaotic and utterly grim in the parts of the country that were not seriously contested until the NATO intervention as in the (always rapidly shrinking) areas that were. This version of the Taliban is a little different on that front, but there's little to indicate that they're likely to be competent, and there's no reason at all to assume that ethnic strife and civil war will cease the moment they seize Kabul. Leaving aside the pretty high chance that warlordism kicks off again, there's the issue that the Taliban is no longer dominated by a single charismatic personality and is now highly factionalised.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Makes you wonder how things would have been different if Abdullah Abdullah had won the "election" (or if Ahmed Shah Masood hadn't been offed before 9/11).

If ASM had survived... everything would be different, and so different it's hard to even imagine clearly what might have happened. For one thing it would have been harder for the United States to have followed the traditional strategy (going right back to the Raj) of imposing a series of suitably pro-modernity Pashtun strongmen on the country and hoping that this time it really would bear state-building fruit. As for Abdullah... for all his faults, that rigged poll was clearly the point at which the credibility of the 'national' government collapsed amongst most minorities.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Being reported (though I don't think confirmed?) that Mazer-e-Sharif has finally fallen and that the militias have legged it to the Uzbek border, possibly to regroup: M-e-S is not actually very defensible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is also being reported that Dostum is bribing - with serious money - 'national' 'army' helicopter pilots and others with access to kit and some technical ability to defect to his personal militia.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Belarus, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Russian puppet states, Myanmar, Syria initially and fairly quickly. Then most of the other oppressive governments out there, and some of the less scrupulous semi-democracies and democracies.

It would be nice to be wrong, but I doubt it.

Reasonable chance that there is - at least for a time - a bizarre echo of Afghanistan's situation after the Second Anglo-Afghan War, with Pakistan taking the place of the Raj and setting Afghanistan's foreign policy for it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is this still "remains to be seen?" The areas of Afghanistan most hostile or dubious to the Taliban in the 90s are already under their control.

Though this has largely been a case of moving into a vacuum. Badakhshan was abandoned by 'government' forces with barely a shot fired, for instance. There doesn't seem much chance of the 'government' surviving, of people resisting on its behalf, but trouble down the road is hardly unrealistic. So it depends, to an extent, on what is meant by 'submit'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Being reported that Jalalabad has fallen. It seems that what's left of the 'army' isn't even bothering to pretend to fight now and that local warlords and strongmen are cutting quick surrender deals with the Taliban. This, of course, is hardly unprecedented or unusual in Afghanistan. Surrender now to fight another day and, quite probably, to surrender again in the same circumstances to a new master.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

President Ghani has fled. Some reports say to Tajikistan. Former President Hamid Karzai is staying on the other hand.

Makes sense for Ghani to go to Tajikistan since he is Tajik himself.  There are many reasons why the Ghani  regime collapsed.  One of them is favoritism toward Tajiks by the Ghani  regime which served to drive other ethnic groups toward the Taliban.

Ghani is Pashtun (from, funnily enough, the same tribe as Najibullah) and extremely unpopular with Afghan Tajiks.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If we're talking about lies told by American politicians, military figures and diplomats, then the biggest is actually the idea that the situation coming to a close was a singular war in which American soldiers were fighting toe-to-toe against ferocious Taliban militiamen every day. Easier to sell than terms like 'military occupation', particularly given American self-image. Of course this linguistic dishonesty ended up backfiring rather badly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[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?

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tbh now that I think of the timeline, it's probably less ideology more that our friend Dostum  was affiliated with the communists in name so the "Communist forces" were just a bunch of Uzbeks loyal to their leader.

Yes, this is correct. The Najibullah government was entirely dependent on Dostum and when he eventually switched sides the end followed extremely rapidly. It is also the case that the situation was completely different to the present in other ways: the country had just been destroyed by nearly a decade of Total War, its cities and many towns and villages were rubble, at least a tenth of the population had been killed and more had fled across the border into Pakistan. And the Mujahiddin were divided between multiple groups with different ideological positions, ethnic profiles and long-term ambitions. None of that applies to the present.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

Well, that came into being under very specific circumstances. My guess would be that it is unlikely that the next phase in conflict will be dominated by ethnic considerations, unless the Taliban make some really stupid errors. But the future in general is uncertain. It may well be that we will see, at some point, entirely new militia groups: there are a lot of weapons floating around and authority is rarely spread about particularly thickly in Afghanistan. An attempt to re-establish old ones acquired a lot of equipment and men from the 'National Army' very quickly before fleeing safely to Uzbekistan. A lot will depend on how the Taliban rule: there are certain things they could do that might trigger uprisings and opportunities for opponents almost immediately, but they may well be very careful.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I still don't trust the Taliban over women's rights a slight bit.

Imagine being the sort of person that does.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There was an anti-Taliban protest in Jalalabad today. The Taliban responded by opening fire on the crowd: there are causalities. Many things can be observed from this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And how can they be assured of their loyalty?

Many (most?) of the pilots appear to have followed the money north into Uzbekistan anyway.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bit of background: ISIS-K is a Taliban splinter group based in remote rural areas on either side of the Durand Line. The areas of Afghanistan where they are active are largely Ghiji Pashtun, but the leadership and core cadre has largely come from smaller tribes on the Pakistan side of the border, particularly in the Kurram Valley. The organisation has been extremely active since 2015 and has perpetrated regular massacres, particularly of Hazaras, who, as Shia, are regarded as heretics. While the Taliban (on both sides of the Line) is functionally an arm of a rogue part of the Pakistani Deep State and operates accordingly, ISIS-K is much more of an independent actor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean, as much as anything else, they're splitters aren't they? So naturally there's genuine loathing.