The Historical Shame of the American Army in Afghanistan

[rupol2000]

America stayed in the country to long after defeating Al Qaeda, after the 9-11 attacks.

Was it not staying there to contain the Taliban?

What did they do there, did they explain?
The Soviet leadership did not explain what they were doing in Afghanistan, this is still unknown to the mass public, including the veterans of Afghanistan themselves. They really don't know why they fought there and with whom, I'm not kidding.

 

[rupol2000]

If this topic is about comparing the professional qualities of the armies of the United States and the USSR, then this is simply ridiculous. From the USSR, conscripts were sent there, yesterday's schoolchildren who first saw guns.
In the USSR and the modern Russian Federation, there are almost no professional troops, in the best case, some conclude a contract after conscript service

 

[rupol2000]

I think that the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was based on 2 interrelated reasons. The followers of Khrushchev, a party that was opposed to Stalinist Bolshevism and KGB policies, came to power. At this time, Mohammad Najibullah came to power, and his policy, apparently, completely suited Gorbachev's party. It seems Najibullah's policy was against the Taliban.

 

[rupol2000]

The reign of Najibullah almost exactly coincides with the reign of Gorbachev, this is not an accident

 

[rupol2000]

In particular, the Soviet leadership took part in its confirmation and overthrow of the Kramal regime

 

[rupol2000]

Kramal moved to power just by the communists of the pro-Stalin Brezhnev period of stagnation.
So the withdrawal of troops was absolutely logical.

 

[harmonica]

Domino your OP is total bullshit

 

[harmonica]

America is really bad at occupying other countries. If we get anything out of this experience it should be to never try to own another shitty lawless hellhole ever again. A supplemental lesson should be to never let another defense contractor near the levers of power.

no we are not bad at that.....you people watch to much TV......and, we were not occupying it like we did Germany and Japan--we went in there to kill bad guys .......it's not like making a cheese sandwich
....

 

[harmonica]

And where is your Soviets now?

good call

 

[bodecea]

Our military has been deteriorating due to these people in Washington diluting their ranks and demoralizing their moral. Other than the Marines and special forces we have greatly lost the edge that keeps them sharp in combat situations.

I guess this is rightwing bashing the military day.

 

[harmonica]

Was it not staying there to contain the Taliban?

What did they do there, did they explain?
The Soviet leadership did not explain what they were doing in Afghanistan, this is still unknown to the mass public, including the veterans of Afghanistan themselves. They really don't know why they fought there and with whom, I'm not kidding.

..the US was in there because Osama and his boys were there......Russia went in there for political reasons ---just like why we went into Vietnam/etc ......
....these are very complex wars......yes, they know why they went in there
....and Afghanistan has been a shithole for decades with warlords/drug lords/various tribes/etc----some of the warlords and their people helped us AND the Taliban--yes, very complex, confusing, and difficult...it's not like making a cheese sandwich --which is one of the reasons it was so long of a war/etc

 

[rupol2000]

..the US was in there because Osama and his boys were there......Russia went in there for political reasons ---just like why we went into Vietnam/etc ......
....these are very complex wars......yes, they know why they went in there
....and Afghanistan has been a shithole for decades with warlords/drug lords/various tribes/etc----some of the warlords and their people helped us AND the Taliban--yes, very complex, confusing, and difficult...it's not like making a cheese sandwich --which is one of the reasons it was so long of a war/etc

why the USSR entered there and why it came out is more or less clear. It was with the arrival and fall of Babrak Karmal, and the fall of Kramal and the arrival of Najibullah were associated with a change of regime in the USSR itself.
Najibullah was overthrown almost simultaneously with Gorbachev, and later he was brutally killed by the Taliban.
Thus, everything is clear with the Soviet influence in Afghanistan. It remains to unravel the role of the United States

PS However, according to other information, the regime of Najibullah fall down of the northern anti-Pashtun coalition. The information is contradictory.

"The Pashtun domination of the Afghan polity eventually came to an end in April 1992 when a coalition of Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek overthrew Najibullah’s regime. From 1992 to 1996 the Tajik Burhannudin Rabbani led the central government. However, ethnic and power rivalries fragmented the ruling alliance, marking Afghanistan’s descent into warlordism and ethnic conflict. Therefore, this period is coded as State Collapse in EPR."

https://growup.ethz.ch/atlas/pdf/Afghanistan.pdf

 

[rupol2000]

Najibulah was apparently a transitional option between the Pashtun government and the Turkestan coalition.

 

[rupol2000]

Everything is correct. The Najibullah government was in favor of federalization. This is a transitional option.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I mostly agree with harmonica here (which is unusual) especially when he talks about complexity. For the USSR things were often very complex as well. Why would anyone imagine anything else?

rupol2000 seems to me to have a simplified view of the ruling circles of both the USSR and the Kabul regimes in the 1979-1992 period.

It is certainly correct to counterpose our “exit” to the Soviet “exit,” but it is easy to make too much of this. Their exit was certainly smoother, despite all the military aid the U.S. (and our Saudi allies) provided — including Stinger missiles — because they left an Afghan “government” and army willing to fight for Kabul and other cities. It was no longer “Communist” in any sense, but instead a coalition “progressive Islamic Republic,” one we could actually have encouraged the Mujahadin to work with after the Red Army left … had we wanted to. (In some respects this situation was like the Taliban after 9/11 and our bombing campaign, which wanted to negotiate with Bush.)

The biggest difference, it seems to me, is that after the Gorbachev Politburo pulled out and genuine secular forces were destroyed by the U.S.-supported Mujehedin, all the governments we backed were basically Mujaheddin / tribal / warlord concoctions, spiced up after 2001 with an extremely narrow layer of Western educated technocrats. No matter how much money we spent, no matter how many troops we sent, no progress was possible in Afghan conditions by then. The money was wasted on corruption, much of it even finding its way to the Taliban.

 

[rupol2000]

all the governments we backed were basically Mujaheddin / tribal / warlord concoctions

Why not call things by their names? It is an alliance of the peoples of northern Afghanistan against the occupation regime of the Pashtuns and the terror of the extremists representing them.

But the US support is a question here. We do not see this. There is some kind of hypocritical game

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

rupol2000 : I am aware of Pushtan “nationalism” and of the complicated tribal/ethnic/clan/linguistic & religious loyalties throughout Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan. “Calling things by their right names” … is not so simple as you imagine.

You are 21 years old? Apparently you’re also a Central Asian ethnonationalist advocating breaking up Afghanistan and driving Pushtans out of most of this region, as a step toward a greater Central Asian mega-state.

My friend, it is easier to dream about such things than to accomplish them, especially in the 21st Century.

P.S.
It would probably take a new Genghis Khan to make your dream real — in a post-apocalyptic world in which India and Pakistan, the U.S. and Russia & China had all waged nuclear war.

 

[Flash]

the us army is weak
do they really want to fight against Russia? hahaha

We we do have a military comprised of queers, transsexuals and affirmative action Negros and women thanks to President Potatohead.

They spend more time training on diversity, inclusion and CRT than they do combat training.

They are led by Moon Bat yes men.

 

[skye]

But the military is woke. Wokeism is everything.

I agree....and it's depressing.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The American military’s main problem was that they were sent in to do an impossible job. They fought the wrong kind of war for the wrong reasons in the WRONG PLACE. “Militarist foreign policy” and macho posing for the cameras can never replace sober and thoughtful statesmanship — which the U.S. today sucks at.

We should get our troops out of Syria where they are illegally, and Iraq where they are unwanted. What are we waiting for? To be thrown out? Why were we ever at war in these places without a Constitutionally mandated “Declaration of War”?