Afghanistan....
- Thread starter Bumblebee
- Start date
TallTom
Registered
So Afghanistan is a bit after my time. My main exposure was after 9/11 when they called up some old dinosaurs like me and said, hey there are kicking out ass with old tech and tactics, we need you to help. They were smart enough to not use cell and satellite to communicate. So I knew they were still using basic tech. back then, but I figured after 20 years we'd have adapted to running down pick ups and mopeds by now.
Not like they have a Navy or Air Force. Not even sure why we felt compelled to leave all the Blackhawks and close air support light aircraft behind. Not like anyone was trained to use them.
Still to be out maneuvered by turn of the century tactics, doesn't say much for the western forces.
The roads suck too much for Hayabusas and the talcum powder sand would wreak havoc on one....just thank our lucky stars them crappy little motorcycles were not Hayabusas, then i would be scared
Hard to fight an enemy which looks like the general populace and take refuge within their cities and towns...unless the coalition totally destroys everything there, they can hide in plain sight.
The Viet Nam vets know this all too well, they were out maneuvered many times by the Viet Cong who used similar tactics...
The Taliban are very resourceful, they used lots of simple IEDs to stop convoys and road movement then engaged with small arms making us expend millions of dollars worth of ordnance on targets which were already gone out of the area. When we used cell jammers, they resorted to using our own expended batteries in series to trigger the IEDs
There are thousands of caves and concealed areas of which they operated and they had the citizens in a grip of fear and used their houses and built up areas to launch attacks...
They used a potent 84mm anti tank rocket launcher to great effect against armor and light vehicles.
As for the helicopters and aircraft, those belonged to the ANA and the US was going to destroy them but figured the ANA would be using them to fight with....the fact they would collapse and run away never occurred to very many people in authority...
Either that or giving up the
Or the equipment was a part of the deal. If you think about it the Taliban or Al Qaeda could get some mileage out of an attack now when we are completely handicapped. But they are for the most part playing along. I am wondering how long this deal will last.
The US forces said that they intended to blow up the equipment were possible and the only reason some of it wasn't blown up is they thought the ANA would be using it...then they (the coalition) lost the battle space...
I think the Taliban are playing along right now so the coalition will take the people out of the country the Taliban deem to be undesirable to their master plan...and the deal will last until those people are gone.
ISIS-K and the Taliban have always been at odds so any attack by this ISIS group would be met by reprisals from the Taliban.
Nice presents we are leaving for the Taliban:
Four C-130 transport aircraft, 23 Brazilian-made A-29 "Super Tucano" turboprop ground-attack aircraft, 45 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and 50 smaller MD-530 choppers. In addition more than 30 military versions of Cessna single-engine fixed-wing aircraft.
They now have 40 Black Hawks more than Australia.
Four C-130 transport aircraft, 23 Brazilian-made A-29 "Super Tucano" turboprop ground-attack aircraft, 45 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and 50 smaller MD-530 choppers. In addition more than 30 military versions of Cessna single-engine fixed-wing aircraft.
They now have 40 Black Hawks more than Australia.
Those are just a drop in the bucket...thousands of M4 (or equal) carbines, M-60 LMGs, .50 cal GPMGs, and millions of rounds of ammo MRAPS, HUMMVEEs, utility trucks, radios, artillery pieces, tanks, etc, etc...
They have become a very well armed and equipped insurgency...
Thankfully most of the aircraft are in non-operational status and they have nobody who knows how to fly them (for now) and nobody who knows how to maintain them.
Cantab
Registered
Sounds normal then.
I always wonder if the previous administration would have done this differently?
Add extra troops, get the embassy to process all documents for those who needs to leave, then get all the non military out in an organized fashion. Close the embassy. Start getting the equipment out and hit the Taliban hard from a base somewhere else if they interfere. Once that is all done, the military departs.
It seems as if our military was totally out of touch with how corrupt the Afghans were and how demotivated their military was.
Add extra troops, get the embassy to process all documents for those who needs to leave, then get all the non military out in an organized fashion. Close the embassy. Start getting the equipment out and hit the Taliban hard from a base somewhere else if they interfere. Once that is all done, the military departs.
It seems as if our military was totally out of touch with how corrupt the Afghans were and how demotivated their military was.
I heard Trump say in a interview that they would have done it different. Civilians and interpreters and all that helped the US first, then the military. A logical extraction which for the life of me I do not understand how it was botched up this bad. I heard there are pockets of resistance that had access to the helicopters but had no fuel to fly. Not sure how much is real or lies but it certainly seems that equipment was left behind without training anyone how to maintain it or the supplies needed to operate them at least for short term.
TallTom
Registered
I think a lot of Blackhawks are going to be on the market next month.
Sergeant junior
Registered
I served in Kabul, Afghanistan 2014 for 6 months. My brother is military too, he was twice 2009 and 2012 there. Is crazy to see now everything what was under control of ANA and NDS is gone for 1 month.
I can't see how any other administration could have done it differently, the ANA collapse was quick and thorough.....all plans can and will fail. There will be all kinds of "bravado" saying "I'd have done this or that" but unless that person or administration is in the hot seat, we'll never know.
The military elements who were pulled out were not war fighters, they were mostly air elements and would have been extremely vulnerable if they were left there...
The ANA relied heavily on the coalition to maintain their aircraft, there were air crew and techs but they all walked away...and the supply system fell apart when those people walked away as well...
TallTom
Registered
Which could have been part of the reason Trump didn't undertake the last step prior the elections. It's always the current admin that is going to be blamed or praised, despite that it would have been the same outcome regardless. I mean I'd rather listen to a boots on the ground before CNN or Fox when it comes to anything.
I mean I have gotten done with something, come home and hear months later by the media what happened. And I'm like Jesus Christ that is NOTHING like it was.
But we got paid to do a job, not to talk about it.
Many times I've noticed that...embedded journalists reporting on an up-coming OP was always something that wound up the commanders...nothing like broadcasting your plans to the enemy...that is why Baghram was evacuated in the middle of the night...
Fortunately I never had to deal with embedded journalists where I was...
TallTom
Registered
I was asked *cough cough* to come back after 9/11. Bush handed down our directive. If they are Muslim I want to know who they are talking to, where they are going, what they spend their $$ on and what they had for breakfast every morning. Every Muslim. We knew that that was going to be problematic in court. But it wasn't our job to think that far up. It was our directive.
It ended up being how some end up in Gitmo for the rest of their lives. That was how it never got challenged in court.
By the time the press got done we were listening in on Americans without warrants to do so. How he was horrible etc.
We rounded up a crap ton of enemies of our country. They never saw court or the light of day again. And never another attack on our soil as a result.
We didn't give a chyt what they talked about except for anything that was a threat to us. Porno we didn't care. Alcohol, doesn't matter. Affairs on their wives so what. Not paying taxes......please.
But the press would have us believe we were persecuting a class of citizen because they were Muslim. No, we were trying to figure out which Muslims were trying to blow us up. The truth is it could have been any of them.
Nobody in the press wanted to acknowledge that.
Realize the previous a
I think using the Monday morning quarterbacking to elevate Trump's approach is a bit over the top. That said, maybe Biden should have gone back to the table with the Taliban but since Trump made them an offer they couldn't refuse and the Afghans gave up after realizing the Americans were not there behind them there was really nothing to negotiate for Biden.
Note the previous administration negotiated peace between the US and the Taliban, leaving the Afghans out in the cold. A part of the peace agreement was to not raise the troop levels. Trump was going to drop things and get out as he didn't care about world status or American influence (Trump's words, not mine).
I think using the Monday morning quarterbacking to elevate Trump's approach is a bit over the top. That said, maybe Biden should have gone back to the table with the Taliban but since Trump made them an offer they couldn't refuse and the Afghans gave up after realizing the Americans were not there behind them there was really nothing to negotiate for Biden.
One has to ask the question though, if a force of 300,000 far superiorly armed men simply gave up against an enemy of 70,000, what was actually going on over there. It simply means either all four administrations had no idea what they were doing, or they knew that they were backing a puppeteer government as well as military and just lied to the American public for political gain.
I believe the Washington Post supports the latter. That could be the reason why the Trump administration started talking with the Taliban.
Last edited:
An interesting read for certain....
Even with reading that, nobody thought the ANA and ANP would dissolve so quickly....we sure spent a lot of time and effort training them. But, honestly any gains we made there were made by coalition troops and any progress made towards women's rights and basic life necessities were made by the same...
The Afghan "government" didn't seem to have an appetite to help or govern themselves. Once "big brother" wasn't there to prop them up, they fell over.
Either way it is a very sad development....
Similar threads
