Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan | Meanwhile, in Afghanistan... (1 Viewer)

[Laron]

Here's a thread to keep information relating to the recent announcement of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. I'm starting off with the following information I shared in another post, which some of you may have seen already.

Watch: 100s Of US Citizens Scramble Aboard C-17 As Taliban Ready To Declare "Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan"
"The situation in Kabul (well all of Afghanistan) has gone from bad to worst case scenario as a Taliban official says they will soon declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul, the Associated Press reported, after reports of the insurgents entering the premises and taking control of it
zerohedge.com/markets/city-shock-taliban-enter-kabul-us-starts-evacuating-embassy-china-mocks-biden-over-complete

Former CIA Officer: "The Most Infamous & Devastating Press Conference Ever Held By An American President"
"Kabul's streets are clogged with panicked civilians fleeing the Taliban onslaught of the Afghan capital, American chinook helicopters are hovering above the US Embassy with an emergency evacuation in progress, and the national government propped up for two decades by US money and power is negotiating surrender with barely a fight. One former CIA officer has observed looking back to Joe Biden's July 8 Afghan policy speech: "This may become the most infamous — and devastating — press conference ever held by an American President," wrote CIA foreign operations veteran Bryan Dean Wright on Sunday."
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-cia-officer-most-infamous-devastating-press-conference-ever-held-american




Trump decries one of ‘greatest defeats in American history’ amid Afghan collapse, calls for Biden to ‘resign in disgrace’
Ex-President Donald Trump excoriated predecessor Joe Biden for allowing one of America’s worst defeats ever as Taliban fighters recaptured Afghanistan, while the current commander-in-chief was conspicuously silent on the debacle. “What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary,” Trump said on Sunday. “It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/532129-trump-biden-defeat-afganistan-resign/

 

[Linda]

old enough to remember Saigon, as are plenty of others.

moronic incompetence or pernicious intentions - there is no middle ground

 

[Laron]

7 killed in Kabul airport chaos as military evacuation INTERRUPTED by desperate Afghan civilians after regular flights CANCELED
"US officials say seven people have died at Kabul airport, including some who fell from a departing American transport plane. Meanwhile, flights out of the Afghan capital have been interrupted by crowds on the runway. The death toll was reported by the Associated Press on Monday, citing US officials. Throughout Sunday night, US troops brought in to protect the evacuation of American diplomats and workers struggled to keep hundreds of desperate Afghans off the runway at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport, which is now the only lifeline between Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the outside world. US troops killed two gunmen at the airport, a Pentagon official stated later on Monday, adding that there was "no indication" that they were Taliban fighters. One American troop was injured, he added."
https://www.rt.com/news/532206-kabul-airport-military-evacuation-chaos/

 

[Snowmelt]

There is recent history (the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war) that should be understood, to get clarity on what has happened also in this US-Afghan War (although, literally I understand that wars and who wins them are picked by elites years in advance, so you are just seeing things played out that have been manipulated to play out that way).

The Taliban And Mujahideen: Comparisons And Lessons Learned

At the time of the Soviet invasion, those fleeing from Afghanistan to Pakistan were one of the largest refugee populations in the world. They flooded

www.risetopeace.org

At the time of the Soviet invasion, those fleeing from Afghanistan to Pakistan were one of the largest refugee populations in the world. They flooded border towns like Peshawar and Quetta. These locations aided mujahideen leaders in recruitment efforts from growing refugee camps, for their militias. Hundreds of madrassas indoctrinated these refugees to justify their holy war against Soviet forces. Twenty years later, the Taliban utilised the same infrastructure to radicalise their followers against the Americans. ​

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Lessons To Learn​

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Parallels can be drawn between the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and the mujahideen and Taliban. The ideas that advanced American policies in Afghanistan during the 1980s can provide useful lessons concerning counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Although the Taliban and mujahideen have different adversaries, their origins and ideology remain rooted in Islamic teachings. ​

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The same actors of the 1980s are still actively influencing local politics today. For this analysis, mujahideen will refer to the Afghans who drove the Red Army out of Afghanistan in 1989. The refugee crisis served to fuel both groups’ objectives and many of the poor conditions from the 1980s remain today.​

Being old enough, I remember that time of the Soviet-Afghan war. People were incredulous that a great power like the Soviet Union (with its military capabilities) as it was at that time 1979-1989 could lose a war with Mountain or Hill Tribes. This is how we live and learn (or should be doing so, if we were not all somnambulant.) The following are book cover descriptions of 2 books (sharing the same author, Lester K. Grau) that may be worth getting hold of for a more in-depth and insightful understanding of how we are now placed, at the end of 43 years of near-incessant fighting against this nation, or providing international troops to strengthen one side against the other.


The Other Side Of The Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics In The Soviet-Afghan War [Illustrated Edition]
By Lester K. Grau and Ali Ahmad Jalali

3/5 (11 ratings)
530 pages
6 hours

Description
Illustrated with over a hundred maps.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, few experts believed that the fledgling Mujahideen resistance movement had a chance of withstanding the modern, mechanized, technologically-advanced Soviet Army. Most stated that resistance was futile and that the Soviet Union had deliberately expanded their empire to the south. The Soviet Union had come to stay. Although some historians looked at the British experience fighting the Afghan mountain tribesmen, most experts discounted any parallels since the Soviet Union possessed an unprecedented advantage in fire power, technology and military might. Although Arab leaders and the West supplied arms and material to the Mujahideen, they did so with the hope of creating a permanent, bleeding ulcer on the Soviet flank, not defeating the Soviet Union. They did not predict that the Soviet Union would voluntarily withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989.
There have been few studies of guerrilla warfare from the guerrilla’s perspective. To capture this perspective and the tactical experience of the Mujahideen, the United States Marine Corps commissioned this study and sent two retired combat veterans to interview Mujahideen. The authors were well received and generously assisted by various Mujahideen who willingly talked about their long, bitter war. The authors have produced a unique book which tells the guerrillas’ story as interpreted by military professionals. This is a book about small-unit guerrilla combat. This is a book about death and survival, adaptation and perseverance.




An old political map from the Soviet era showing major insurgent groups in Afghanistan

At the time of the Soviet-Afghan war, Russia's chosen enemy was known simply as the Mujahideen.

The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost by Lester W. Grau
The War in Afghanistan (1979-1989) has been called the Soviet Unions Vietnam War, a conflict that pitted Soviet regulars against a relentless, elusive, and ultimately unbeatable Afghan guerrilla force (the mujahideen). The hit-and-run bloodletting across the wars decade tallied more than 25,000 dead Soviet soldiers plus a great many more casualties and further demoralized a USSR on the verge of disintegration.

In The Soviet-Afghan War the Russian general staff takes a close critical look at the Soviet militarys disappointing performance in that war in an effort to better understand what happened and why and what lessons should be taken from it. Lester Grau and Michael Gresss expert English translation of the general staffs study offers the very first publication in any language of this important and illuminating work.

Surprisingly, this was a study the general staff never intended to write, initially viewing the war in Afghanistan as a dismal aberration in Russian military history. The history of the 1990s has, of course, completely demolished that belief, as evidenced by the Russian Armys subsequent engagements with guerrilla forces in Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, and elsewhere. As a result, Russian officers decided to take a much closer look at the Red Armys experiences in the Afghan War.

Their study presents the Russian view of how the war started, how it progressed, and how it ended; shows how a modern mechanized army organized and conducted a counter-guerrilla war; chronicles the major battles and operations; and provides valuable insights into Soviet tactics, strategy, doctrine, and organization across a wide array of military branches. The editors incisive preface and commentary help contextualize the Russian view and alert the reader to blind spots in the general staffs thinking about the war.

This one-of-a-kind document provides a powerful case study on how yet another modern mechanized army imprudently relied upon the false promise of technology to defeat a determined guerrilla foe. Along the way, it vividly reveals the increasing disillusionment of Soviet soldiers, how that disillusion seeped back into Soviet society, and how it contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Red Army had fought their war to a military draw but that was not enough to stave off political defeat at home. The Soviet-Afghan War helps clarify how such a surprising demise could have materialized in the backyard of the Cold Wars other great superpower.

 

[Margie]

Sarah Chayes;
Speaking as an American, as an adoptive Kandahari, and as a former senior U.S. government official — here are the key factors I see in today’s climax of a two-decade long fiasco:

The Ides of August

August 15, 2021I’ve been silent for a while. I’ve been silent about Afghanistan for longer. But too many things are going unsaid. I won’t try to evoke the emotions, somehow both swirling and yet leaden: the grief, the anger, the sense of futility. Instead, as so often before, I will use my mind...

www.sarahchayes.org

 

[Laron]

Biden administration appears to have stockpiled military equipment for Taliban months before collapse

"For months, the Biden administration was stockpiling military equipment for the Taliban before the collapse of the Afghan government. The report comes from Reuters who shares that well over a month before the Taliban’s march across the country, the Biden administration was sending military equipment to Afghanistan amid a “planned withdrawal.”

The plans of the Biden administration were not very well thought out or executed. But perhaps this was the plan all along.

According to Reuters, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters, “They’ll continue to see a steady drumbeat of that kind of support, going forward.”"

https://breakingnews.exchange/biden-administration-appears-to-have-stockpiled-military-equipment-for-taliban-months-before-collapse/

 

[Lila]

QUOTE]Corruption of this sort is the operating system of sophisticated networks [/QUOTE]
Margie, I found this comment had so many implications to unpack!

 

[Snowmelt]

Alfred Labremont Weber stated in a vid on August 24 that the Taliban had recently declared that as with Russia in their failed war, the U.S. would be "Balkanized" (Alfred's term) after their failed war. Alfred explained that since 1977 when he was with Stanford Research Institute's Futurist division, it was divulged to him at that time that plans were in place to demarcate and divide the U.S. into 9-10 different states or entities. At the time Russia lost their Afghan war, they were still the USSR which included the states of Ukraine, the "Stans", etc, but soon became divided into a smaller power base not too long after.

I take the speakers in this video with a grain of salt (plenty of ego on display - bar Alfred, I think he has grown beyond that, now in his 80's) but his contribution is worth a listen.

Truth-telling & A Positive Future: Patty Greer, Free Range Gail of Gaia, & Alfred Lambremont Webre
WATCH ON TRUETUBE:
https://youtu.be/nbiB0TPHgdQ

P.S. A note on the video above: the guest called Paul - in the lower right hand Zoom quadrant: I can see his Star-being image in the Curtain behind him, it is a beautiful being. His human looks a bit dour, tell me if anyone else can see it?