Afghanistan

[Ben]

Shouldn't that be pony soldier bourbon for him?

The Horse Soldier looks interesting. I'll have to see if the state liquor store carries it and maybe give it a whirl.

[kgbsquirrel]

Except they didn't.

Trump planned an orderly withdrawal.

The military brass fought him on it and dragged their feet.

Then it went Leroy Jenkins after that annoying Trump was gone.

[dogmush]

.......not exactly.

[MechAg94]

Here is the photo I saw earlier.

[Bogie]

Keep in mind too that a LOT of the Taliban are NOT from Afghanistan... They are from other areas, and are there "for Jihad."
 
Or raping.

[Phyphor]

6 of 1, half a dozen of the other........

[Ron]

There are those who say that Afghanistan is going down pretty much as planned.

I tend to agree.

[zxcvbob]

Keep in mind too that a LOT of the Taliban are NOT from Afghanistan... They are from other areas, and are there "for Jihad."
 
Or raping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigZ1fmwD-Q&ab_channel=527dannyb

[Ben]

There are those who say that Afghanistan is going down pretty much as planned.

I tend to agree.

You mean Trump's diabolical plan to kibosh Biden?

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/08/19/never-go-full-blueanon-cheri-jacobus-dragged-then-dragged-more-for-claiming-trump-set-a-booby-trap-for-biden-in-afghanistan/

[Ron]

You mean Trump's diabolical plan to kibosh Biden?

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/08/19/never-go-full-blueanon-cheri-jacobus-dragged-then-dragged-more-for-claiming-trump-set-a-booby-trap-for-biden-in-afghanistan/

In order to believe the current narrative you have to believe in the absolute incompetence and failure of our entire intelligence service and military. The incompetence of the Afghan military has not been a secret.

I'm not sure I can buy wholesale across the board failure as the reality.

For all we know we spent the last couple decades training up and flooding the Taliban with our own people. The Taliban was protected and nurtured in Pakistan by their intelligence service ... who I'm pretty sure we fund. Isn't this what you would do if you were in charge?

This much is certain, the mainstream narrative is a lie.

I'm not finished reevaluating Trump. He had some wins but not many. He made some really counterproductive decisions IMHO. Particularly in personnel. Not sure what his role is in this story.

 

[MechAg94]

Trump would have struggled to prevent something similar from happening had he managed to pull troops out last year.  The question would be how he reacted to the Taliban moving back in and/or how the Taliban would have reacted knowing Trump was in charge. 

But blaming current situation on Trump implies a lot of people in the Govt playing sides with Trump that we didn't see before.  According to one of the articles posted earlier, there were good plans to pull people out on time and probably setting up the withdrawal.  None of those plans were executed (certainly not on time) which implies a failure at the leadership level. 

[Ben]

It's okay everybody - Biden is still new at this stuff, and CNN says we need to cut him some slack.

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/08/19/still-new-are-you-high-desperate-to-protect-biden-cnn-tries-pushing-a-whole-new-level-of-lapdog-that-does-not-fly-at-all/

[WLJ]

It's okay everybody - Biden is still new at this stuff, and CNN says we need to cut him some slack.

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/08/19/still-new-are-you-high-desperate-to-protect-biden-cnn-tries-pushing-a-whole-new-level-of-lapdog-that-does-not-fly-at-all/

Only been a senator since 1973, VP for 8 years, pres for 7 months. Yep, he's new.

[Ben]

So around 2000 armored vehicles, 40 aircraft, and a ton of small arms. Not sure what resources the Talis would have for using the aircraft, but they might certainly be up on terrorist Ebay shortly.

I would worry not about the armored vehicles themselves, but the stuff in them. I know many armored vehicles have EO-IRs and similar in them with networked GPS connectivity for targeting and whatnot. Could be a worry both if the Taliban figures out how to use them and if it is specific classified tech that would be valuable to third parties. Also I guess they have AMRAAMs.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/19/just-staggering-thanks-to-the-biden-admin-the-taliban-now-has-an-air-force-and-more/

[BobR]

^^^^

The same thing happened leaving Vietnam, IIRC we turned the Vietnam Communists into the 5th largest military in the world for a while when we left there. By that time, most of the equipment belonged to the South Vietnam forces. Just like A-Stan, most of it is actually owned by the Afghans.

bob

[Ben]

^^^^

 Just like the 'Stan, most of it is actually owned by the Afghans.

bob

I was wondering how much was given to the Afghan army and how much was our own stuff left behind. Just curious if we gave the Afghans identical units to our own or if the stuff was "dumbed down" as it were.

[RoadKingLarry]

So around 2000 armored vehicles, 40 aircraft, and a ton of small arms. Not sure what resources the Talis would have for using the aircraft, but they might certainly be up on terrorist Ebay shortly.

I would worry not about the armored vehicles themselves, but the stuff in them. I know many armored vehicles have EO-IRs and similar in them with networked GPS connectivity for targeting and whatnot. Could be a worry both if the Taliban figures out how to use them and if it is specific classified tech that would be valuable to third parties. Also I guess they have AMRAAMs.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/19/just-staggering-thanks-to-the-biden-admin-the-taliban-now-has-an-air-force-and-more/

As to the aircraft, a good friend of mine who is a retired Army Blackhawk crew chief spent quite a bit of time with the Afghanis as a contractor training them on the Blackhawk. His opinion of their ability was not very high and that he was only in it for the very lucrative money. He described the whole process as pretty much just pissing into the wind. So if the Afghanis/taliban have acquired any high maintenance aircraft I would not expect them to be flying or flyable for long.

[cordex]

I wonder if China will buy some gear for intel purposes. It might be export versions, but still.

[WLJ]

As to the aircraft, a good friend of mine who is a retired Army Blackhawk crew chief spent quite a bit of time with the Afghanis as a contractor training them on the Blackhawk. His opinion of their ability was not very high and that he was only in it for the very lucrative money. He described the whole process as pretty much just pissing into the wind. So if the Afghanis/taliban have acquired any high maintenance aircraft I would not expect them to be flying or flyable for long.

No, but they may be a source of cold hard cash from people who either can and/or need spare parts.

[WLJ]

https://twitter.com/JamesWashngton/status/1428183925541806080

 

[dogmush]

What I'm hearing from the guys in theatre is we left pretty much nothing US owned in working condition.  It either was straight up the ANA's, or it met the demil requirements for transfer to the ANA, and we transferred it, or we destroyed it in place. That also tracks with what I saw last year when I was deployed.  We started moving the big and important stuff out in mid 2019, and rigged everything else for a quick withdrawal.  Things you're seeing on the internet like those drones (Scan Eagles) are the ANA's stuff.  The Blackhawks I've seen are all ANAF UH-60A's.  (We fly -60L's)  the MRAPS I've seen don't have any of the antenna's that would indicate our force tracking or digital battlefield capabilities, or even 3rd Gen NV/Thermal.  One guy told me they went as far as slashing the fuel bags in the FOB's if the ANA didn't/couldn't take them before they left.  All the stuff at Bagram we heard about (Toyotas, HMMWV's, small arms, ammo, and the like) was stuff we were directed to turn over to the ANA, so export model or lower.  Don't get me wrong, a lot of it was nicer then the Soviet surplus the Taliban had before, and I'm seeing a lot of M4 w/ACOG on the news, but it's not current, or even last, gen US gear.

One of my emails actually said the feeling back in Kuwait (where most of this stuff went for sorting) is that the military did a pretty solid, by the book deliberate withdrawal, took our stuff and disabled what we couldn't, got all of our personnel out (minus the 'terps, but we did what we could there) and got to the airport, looked at the State Dep and USAID folks and said "What do you mean you left people out there?  Didn't you see us leaving?"

Bear in mind my friends and I are talking on unclass e-mail, so there maybe a few missed things they aren't trumpeting to the world, but not tons and tons of hi-tech gear.

YMMV.

[MechAg94]

What I'm hearing from the guys in theatre is we left pretty much nothing US owned in working condition.  It either was straight up the ANA's, or it met the demil requirements for transfer to the ANA, and we transferred it, or we destroyed it in place. That also tracks with what I saw last year when I was deployed.  We started moving the big and important stuff out in mid 2019, and rigged everything else for a quick withdrawal.  Things you're seeing on the internet like those drones (Scan Eagles) are the ANA's stuff.  The Blackhawks I've seen are all ANAF UH-60A's.  (We fly -60L's)  the MRAPS I've seen don't have any of the antenna's that would indicate our force tracking or digital battlefield capabilities, or even 3rd Gen NV/Thermal.  One guy told me they went as far as slashing the fuel bags in the FOB's if the ANA didn't/couldn't take them before they left.  All the stuff at Bagram we heard about (Toyotas, HMMWV's, small arms, ammo, and the like) was stuff we were directed to turn over to the ANA, so export model or lower.  Don't get me wrong, a lot of it was nicer then the Soviet surplus the Taliban had before, and I'm seeing a lot of M4 w/ACOG on the news, but it's not current, or even last, gen US gear.

One of my emails actually said the feeling back in Kuwait (where most of this stuff went for sorting) is that the military did a pretty solid, by the book deliberate withdrawal, took our stuff and disabled what we couldn't, got all of our personnel out (minus the 'terps, but we did what we could there) and got to the airport, looked at the State Dep and USAID folks and said "What do you mean you left people out there?  Didn't you see us leaving?"

Bear in mind my friends and I are talking on unclass e-mail, so there maybe a few missed things they aren't trumpeting to the world, but not tons and tons of hi-tech gear.

YMMV.

That is good to hear.  Glad to hear the military had their end covered.  Sounds like department coordination issues at a higher level. 

[dogmush]

One addendum:

We (the US, not just the DOD) spent a LOT of time and effort adding Afghani's (both friendly and not) into a biometric database with multiple biometric entries for each person.  I have no idea if we shared that with the ANA or not, but that database and the hardware to query it is now reportedly in Taliban hands.  That could be a pretty big problem.

[Angel Eyes]

https://twitter.com/JamesWashngton/status/1428183925541806080

 

Perfect.

[HankB]

Seems we could have done some good over the past 20 years had we trained Afghan women and given them guns . . .