Afghanistan - What should have been done, what should be don

[Elwher]

With the Taliban having taken over the country, the twin questions seem to be what should we do and what caused it.

It is my opinion that the answer to the second gives rise to the first.

When the Taliban were forced out of control 20 years ago, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the caves and mountains, organized, planned, and generally worked (with the clandestine help of outside powers) on plans to outlast the secularists to retake power.

When the secularists were forced out of power last week, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the airports and borders to ensure their safety. If the secularists really want to retake power, they need to look to the Taliban for the methods that work; running away is not one of them.

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

If, on the other hand, the only goal for the secular Afghan people is survival, then let them leave their people under Taliban rule. It is up to the Afghan people to decide their own fate.

Other opinions are, of course, welcomed and sought.

[Aggicificicerous]

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

How do you think the Taliban came to power in the first place?

[Kiruri]

What caused it is not summed up in a short paragraph, that's for sure. I'll stay away from answering that question but as for your second question, what we (I will assume we is a stand-in for America) should do is nothing.

Nation-building is no easy task and 20 years is not even a quarter of the time, effort and money required for a successful endeavor. Equipping a rebel or opposition force is what gave rise to the Taliban to begin with and will simply perpetuate instability and human suffering.

I think the global community should use diplomatic means to pressure a minimum respect of natural human rights and engage the Taliban diplomatically (at least once they establish a functional civil government) without military intervention. Not saying that will accomplish much (at the internal level at least), but it's what I think the west will most likely do now.

All internal affairs of Afghanistan are in the hands of the people of Afghanistan (the one with the bigger gun usually wins, it seems the Taliban are the ones with the bigger guns now, but who knows what the future holds...) - If they, the people, are willing to continue or spark a new civil war and oust the Taliban themselves, then so be it.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

They should have put me in charge.

[Duvniask]

Just from the executive summary of the August 2021 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), it can be gleaned that the Americans made so goddamn many mistakes.

And a lot of it comes down to not understanding Afghanistan and trying to shoehorn modern/Western ways onto it, along with unrealistic goals and timetables that incentivized quick spending over meaningful efforts at sustainable development, in part because Washington did not have the necessary personnel and resources to get an understanding of conditions on the ground.

"The U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan could be described as 20 one-year reconstruction efforts, rather than one 20-year effort. U.S. officials often underestimated the time and resources needed to rebuild Afghanistan, leading to short-term solutions like the surge of troops, money, and resources from 2009–2011. U.S. officials also prioritized their own political preferences for what they wanted reconstruction to look like, rather than what they could realistically achieve, given the constraints and conditions on the ground. Early in the war, U.S. officials denied the mission resources necessary to have an impact, and implicit deadlines made the task even harder. As security deteriorated and demands on donors increased, so did pressure to demonstrate progress. U.S. officials created explicit timelines in the mistaken belief that a decision in Washington could transform the calculus of complex Afghan institutions, powerbrokers, and communities contested by the Taliban."

"Effectively rebuilding Afghanistan required a detailed understanding of the country’s social, economic, and political dynamics. However, U.S. officials were consistently operating in the dark, often because of the difficulty of collecting the necessary information. The U.S. government also clumsily forced Western technocratic models onto Afghan economic institutions; trained security forces in advanced weapon systems they could not understand, much less maintain; imposed formal rule of law on a country that addressed 80 to 90 percent of its disputes through informal means; and often struggled to understand or mitigate the cultural and social barriers to supporting women and girls. Without this background knowledge, U.S. officials often empowered powerbrokers who preyed on the population or diverted U.S. assistance away from its intended recipients to enrich and empower themselves and their allies. Lack of knowledge at the local level meant projects intended to mitigate conflict often exacerbated it, and even inadvertently funded insurgents."

[Kasantia]

With the Taliban having taken over the country, the twin questions seem to be what should we do and what caused it.

It is my opinion that the answer to the second gives rise to the first.

When the Taliban were forced out of control 20 years ago, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the caves and mountains, organized, planned, and generally worked (with the clandestine help of outside powers) on plans to outlast the secularists to retake power.

When the secularists were forced out of power last week, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the airports and borders to ensure their safety. If the secularists really want to retake power, they need to look to the Taliban for the methods that work; running away is not one of them.

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

If, on the other hand, the only goal for the secular Afghan people is survival, then let them leave their people under Taliban rule. It is up to the Afghan people to decide their own fate.

Other opinions are, of course, welcomed and sought.

What should have beed done? The US and their allies should have stayed on their own countries and leave the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan alone, thats what they should have done.

[Greatest States Of America]

What United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China should have done was to never support the Mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war. Why was it so necessary to take revenge against USSR? These Mujahideen became Taliban with the help of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. This decision is what causing instability and terrorism to this day. The USA along with other allies supported these fanatics and afterwards, these fanatics with help of Pakistan turned onto the west causing 9/11 and aftermath events.
We should ask this question to ourselves '' Was it really necessary''?

[Kasantia]

What United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China should have done was to never support the Mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war. Why was it so necessary to take revenge against USSR? These Mujahideen became Taliban with the help of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. This decision is what causing instability and terrorism to this day. The USA along with other allies supported these fanatics and afterwards, these fanatics with help of Pakistan turned onto the west causing 9/11 and aftermath events.
We should ask this question to ourselves '' Was it really necessary''?

Ι agree

[Bears Armed Mission]

In the other thread on the situation in Afghanistan there's some acceptance that one of the allies' main mistakes back when they originally defeated the Taliban c.20 years ago was not restoring the traditional (and, ny local standards, "moderate") monarchy, which had actually enjoyed considerable public support.

[Kubra]

Flooding the places with money not earmarked for defense and defense acquisition.
As I said, direct spending in economic aid was 24 billion over the whole war, letting the rest of the slack be taken up by NGO's, and that latter bit is *murky* when it comes to the two relevant wars.
Also land reform. This is a default nation-building policy.

[Sungoldy-China]

Afghanistan just returned to its previous appearance.
If it were not for the participation of the United States, Afghanistan should have been in a state of tribal warfare.

[Old Tyrannia]

What should have beed done? The US and their allies should have stayed on their own countries and leave the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan alone, thats what they should have done.

What United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China should have done was to never support the Mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan war. Why was it so necessary to take revenge against USSR? These Mujahideen became Taliban with the help of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. This decision is what causing instability and terrorism to this day. The USA along with other allies supported these fanatics and afterwards, these fanatics with help of Pakistan turned onto the west causing 9/11 and aftermath events.
We should ask this question to ourselves '' Was it really necessary''?

Afghanistan just returned to its previous appearance.
If it were not for the participation of the United States, Afghanistan should have been in a state of tribal warfare.

There are many misconceptions in this thread about Afghanistan and its history.

Until 1973, Afghanistan was a relatively stable constitutional monarchy, and the most democratic it has ever been other than perhaps under US occupation. It's true that only a relatively small proportion of the population were politically engaged, and the monarchy continued to exercise significant power, but that's not terribly unusual for a country like Afghanistan with a largely rural population and little experience with democratic government. The 1964 constitution guaranteed universal suffrage and explicitly enfranchised women. The constitutional monarchy enjoyed support from a broad range of political and social groups, including moderate Islamist and traditionalist groups as well as the moderate wing of the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the Parcham faction. Then in 1973, the king's cousin and former prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan, dissatisfied with the conservatism of the parliamentary system and the 1964 constitution's prohibition on royal family members holding government office, seized power in a bloodless coup whilst the king was abroad for medical treatment. He took power with the assistance of the radical Khalqist faction of the PDPA and established a republic with himself as president, which in practice proved to be an autocratic dictatorship.

Although he was somewhat successful in implementing various social and educational reforms in Afghanistan, Daoud Khan's persecution of minority groups and political groups that opposed him made him highly unpopular. He eventually turned on his Khalqist allies, attempting to purge them from important political offices, which prompted them to assassinate him in 1978 (along with his entire family) and establish a communist government, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The coup was made possible because of Daoud Khan's earlier purges of political factions that had previously balanced the influence of the PDPA, principally monarchists and Islamists. From the start, the DRA was immensely unpopular. Its leaders, the new president Nur Muhammad Taraki and General Secretary of the PDPA Hafizullah Amin, established a brutal police state and attempted to impose state atheism on a country that was still deeply religious, prompting the formation of various resistance movements. Many of these were religiously inspired, and became known as the mujahideen (those who engage in jihad, or religious struggle). Amin eventually had Taraki assassinated after a falling out and managed to persuade a reluctant USSR to intervene in order to shore up his failing government in 1979. Amin did not have a good relationship with the Soviet leadership, who actively urged him to scale back the repression his government engaged in. Amin, who kept a portrait of Josef Stalin in his office, supposedly told Soviet officials in response, "Comrade Stalin showed us how to establish socialism in a backwards country." Probably the smartest thing that the Soviets did upon intervening in Afghanistan was assassinating Amin, who they recognised as a liability rather than an asset, and replacing him with Babrak Karmal from the PDPA's more moderate Parcham faction.

Meanwhile, the various mujahideen groups gained in support as their war began to be seen by Afghans and Muslims across the world as a war of national liberation as well as a struggle between Islam and atheism. The financial support that the mujahideen received from the US and other Western countries was always much smaller than that received from wealthy private donors in other Islamic countries. When the US decided to begin supporting the mujahideen financially they channeled their funding through the Pakistanis, who consequently controlled which of the various insurgent groups received access to funds. Pakistan feared the emergence of a strong nationalist government in Afghanistan that could press Afghan claims to territories disputed with Pakistan, and consequently opted to fund political Islamist groups rather than secular Pashtun nationalist, monarchist and left-wing groups. The mujahideen were a large and ideologically heterogenous group; the seven main militias that eventually formed the umbrella group, the Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen, were broadly divided into two categories; the political Islamists who by and large wanted to establish an Islamic republic and the traditionalists, who were generally more secular and pro-Western in outlook and sought a restoration of the pre-1973 constitutional monarchy.

The Soviet-backed DRA always lacked legitimacy and popular support, and never succeeded in establishing their control of the non-urbanised areas of Afghanistan, a country whose population is only around 27% urbanised even today. This despite the fact that the various mujahideen groups, and the other anti-Soviet insurgents such as the Iranian-backed "Tehran Eight" Shi'ite Muslim groups and the Chinese-backed Maoist factions, spent more time fighting one another than they did the Soviet and Afghan state forces. Ultimately the DRA was never likely to survive without the indefinite presence of Soviet troops in the country, and after the Soviets' withdrawal in 1989 it was only three years before it finally collapsed and was replaced by the highly unstable "Islamic State of Afghanistan," ruled by a coalition of former mujahideen leaders. The fall of the DRA ultimately had little to do with Western support for the mujahideen. Many former mujahideen leaders were reluctant to cooperate with the new government and established themselves as virtually independent warlords over their own small fiefdoms. Meanwhile Pakistan, wanting to install a client government in Afghanistan, supported another former mujahideen commander- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar- in an attempt to overthrow the fragile government and take control for himself. Hematyar subsequently launched an attack on the capital of Kabul, beginning a new civil between his Hezb-e-Islami militia and the other mujahideen groups.

The Taliban formed in 1994. Its founding members were largely minor members of the older mujahideen groups who had been introduced to the radical Saudi-backed Wahhabi school of Islam in extremist madrassas whilst in exile in Pakistan. They consequently adopted the name "Taliban," meaning "students" in Pashto. At that point the Pakistanis had lost faith in Hekmatyar and were looking for a new group to throw their support behind. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was heavily involved in the creation of the Taliban from the beginning. Although the Taliban's founders including its original leader, Mohammad Omar, were previously mujahideen fighters in the war against the Soviets, the Taliban itself wasn't founded until after the Soviets had left and was opposed by many of the prominent mujahideen leaders like Hematyar, Ahmed Shah Massoud, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and Abdul Haq, although others like Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi and Mohammad Yunus Khalis maintained cordial relations with them. The Taliban were able to advance quickly through Afghanistan thanks in large part to the people's increasing weariness of conflict and instability, by promising to end the conflict and bring peace and stability back to Afghanistan. They ultimately succeeded in toppling the short-lived Islamic State of Afghanistan and in 1996 declared their own state, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which remained in power until the US intervention in 2001. During that time, their main opponents in Afghanistan were the Panjshir-based Northern Alliance led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, himself a moderate Islamist and former mujahideen commander belonging to the largely ethnically Tajik group Jamiat-e Islam led by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Jamiat was one of the more moderate Islamist groups amongst the mujahideen, and one of the most willing to cooperate with non-Islamist groups. The Northern Alliance started out as a largely Tajik movement but later was joined by more members of other Afghan ethnic groups, and prior to the American intervention Massoud and the Pashtun leader Abdul Haq were attempting to bring together a broad anti-Taliban coalition under the nominal leadership of the exiled king or shah, Mohammed Zahir Shah.

I'm a bit short of time at the moment, so I'm not going to go into the US intervention, how it might have done things differently at the time or how we, as in the West, should act going forward. However, hopefully the brief outline of Afghanistan's unfortunate recent history above should serve to make a few points clear:

1) Afghanistan was by no means always an unstable, conflict-stricken tribal society, nor was it always doomed to become one; that's just lazy racism assuming that the country's current state of affairs is a consequence entirely of the nature of its inhabitants rather than attempting to understand the complex mix of historic events and geopolitical factors that have led us to where we are now. Had either the 1973 coup against the monarchy or the 1978 coup by the communists failed or never occurred, it is perfectly plausible that Afghanistan would have remained a stable country up to the present.
2) The communist regime always lacked popular support and legitimacy, and its fall had little to do with Western support for the mujahideen. Ultimately, a state atheist Marxist dictatorship with no substantial support outside of urban areas was never going to successfully govern a devoutly Muslim, largely rural country for any extended period of time.
3) The US never funded the Taliban, nor did it play any significant role in its creation. The Taliban should not be conflated with the mujahideen, who were a much larger, more ideologically heterogenous group. The Taliban's leaders were largely former mujahideen fighters, but none were especially prominent figures within the various mujahideen groups, and their main opponents were also former mujahideen and in some cases prominent leaders of the mujahideen.
4) Pakistan has a vested interest in preventing a strong nationalist government from taking power in Kabul, and their ongoing efforts to prevent this are a major contributing factor to the continued instability in the country.

Tune in next time for how the US' policy in Afghanistan was always informed more by the domestic political concerns of American politicians than by what was best for Afghanistan itself, why restoring the 1964 constitutional monarchy would have been a better option in 2001 than Hamid Karzai and the so-called Islamic Republic, and how Pakistan and the ISI continue to fuck everything up and get away with it scot-free.

[North Dizzle]

Day of the Rope

OK just kidding

Napalm

OK just kidding

In all seriousness though, I’m a non interventionist so I say nothing. While the situation is sad, conditions in the third world improve all the time. It’s forecasted that by 2100, the average Bangladeshi will live about as well as the average Dutchman today.

I hope improved access to Enlightenment literature will make them hate the Taliban, and that better transportation will connect the country and relieve ethnic tensions, and someday people will become so invested in the system that a takeover like that never happens again

[Kubra]

Just from the executive summary of the August 2021 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), it can be gleaned that the Americans made so goddamn many mistakes.

And a lot of it comes down to not understanding Afghanistan and trying to shoehorn modern/Western ways onto it, along with unrealistic goals and timetables that incentivized quick spending over meaningful efforts at sustainable development, in part because Washington did not have the necessary personnel and resources to get an understanding of conditions on the ground.

"The U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan could be described as 20 one-year reconstruction efforts, rather than one 20-year effort. U.S. officials often underestimated the time and resources needed to rebuild Afghanistan, leading to short-term solutions like the surge of troops, money, and resources from 2009–2011. U.S. officials also prioritized their own political preferences for what they wanted reconstruction to look like, rather than what they could realistically achieve, given the constraints and conditions on the ground. Early in the war, U.S. officials denied the mission resources necessary to have an impact, and implicit deadlines made the task even harder. As security deteriorated and demands on donors increased, so did pressure to demonstrate progress. U.S. officials created explicit timelines in the mistaken belief that a decision in Washington could transform the calculus of complex Afghan institutions, powerbrokers, and communities contested by the Taliban."

"Effectively rebuilding Afghanistan required a detailed understanding of the country’s social, economic, and political dynamics. However, U.S. officials were consistently operating in the dark, often because of the difficulty of collecting the necessary information. The U.S. government also clumsily forced Western technocratic models onto Afghan economic institutions; trained security forces in advanced weapon systems they could not understand, much less maintain; imposed formal rule of law on a country that addressed 80 to 90 percent of its disputes through informal means; and often struggled to understand or mitigate the cultural and social barriers to supporting women and girls. Without this background knowledge, U.S. officials often empowered powerbrokers who preyed on the population or diverted U.S. assistance away from its intended recipients to enrich and empower themselves and their allies. Lack of knowledge at the local level meant projects intended to mitigate conflict often exacerbated it, and even inadvertently funded insurgents."

also, fun fact since you mention local power-brokers, the US deliberately sidelined a good chunk of the local intellectual elite, the folks with bureaucratic resumes and inclinations, because they were too left-wing.

[Duvniask]

Just from the executive summary of the August 2021 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), it can be gleaned that the Americans made so goddamn many mistakes.

And a lot of it comes down to not understanding Afghanistan and trying to shoehorn modern/Western ways onto it, along with unrealistic goals and timetables that incentivized quick spending over meaningful efforts at sustainable development, in part because Washington did not have the necessary personnel and resources to get an understanding of conditions on the ground.

"The U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan could be described as 20 one-year reconstruction efforts, rather than one 20-year effort. U.S. officials often underestimated the time and resources needed to rebuild Afghanistan, leading to short-term solutions like the surge of troops, money, and resources from 2009–2011. U.S. officials also prioritized their own political preferences for what they wanted reconstruction to look like, rather than what they could realistically achieve, given the constraints and conditions on the ground. Early in the war, U.S. officials denied the mission resources necessary to have an impact, and implicit deadlines made the task even harder. As security deteriorated and demands on donors increased, so did pressure to demonstrate progress. U.S. officials created explicit timelines in the mistaken belief that a decision in Washington could transform the calculus of complex Afghan institutions, powerbrokers, and communities contested by the Taliban."

"Effectively rebuilding Afghanistan required a detailed understanding of the country’s social, economic, and political dynamics. However, U.S. officials were consistently operating in the dark, often because of the difficulty of collecting the necessary information. The U.S. government also clumsily forced Western technocratic models onto Afghan economic institutions; trained security forces in advanced weapon systems they could not understand, much less maintain; imposed formal rule of law on a country that addressed 80 to 90 percent of its disputes through informal means; and often struggled to understand or mitigate the cultural and social barriers to supporting women and girls. Without this background knowledge, U.S. officials often empowered powerbrokers who preyed on the population or diverted U.S. assistance away from its intended recipients to enrich and empower themselves and their allies. Lack of knowledge at the local level meant projects intended to mitigate conflict often exacerbated it, and even inadvertently funded insurgents."

also, fun fact since you mention local power-brokers, the US deliberately sidelined a good chunk of the local intellectual elite, the folks with bureaucratic resumes and inclinations, because they were too left-wing.

Not something I knew about. Where did you garner that info?

[Crockerland]

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

Yes. Great take. If there's one thing to take away from Afghanistan, it's that the United States should support and finance, in your own words, "terrorism." There's no way that could backfire.

what caused it.

Islam.

what should we do

Get every American out, get all American equipment out, and leave the unpopular, unwinnable war behind.

[Ittonia]

With the Taliban having taken over the country, the twin questions seem to be what should we do and what caused it.

It is my opinion that the answer to the second gives rise to the first.

When the Taliban were forced out of control 20 years ago, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the caves and mountains, organized, planned, and generally worked (with the clandestine help of outside powers) on plans to outlast the secularists to retake power.

When the secularists were forced out of power last week, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the airports and borders to ensure their safety. If the secularists really want to retake power, they need to look to the Taliban for the methods that work; running away is not one of them.

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

If, on the other hand, the only goal for the secular Afghan people is survival, then let them leave their people under Taliban rule. It is up to the Afghan people to decide their own fate.

Other opinions are, of course, welcomed and sought.

If I can I prefer not to answer the first question as I simply cannot.

Look,not an expert on these topics,so I may end up saying something stupid,but i still would like to say my opinion .


I think that,at the end of the day,little to nothing could've been done to stop the Taliban,if you see the nations who supported them,apart from Pakistan,they were all powerful nations:China,Russia,Iran and for some time even Saudi Arabia,so it is almost a guarantee that a militant force supported heavily by China and Russia is successful.
Also,the Afghan government forces were incompetent and corrupt,so it was basically a conflict between a corrupt and incompetent army teaming up with some Westerner soldiers to which was given the complicated ad almost impossible task of nation-building against a overall competent militant force fighting alongside some Middle-eastern ,Chinese and Russian soldiers who didn't have to build a nation but destroy it,which is an easier task.

Is all hope gone? I don't think so. Then what's my idea? My idea is to probably attempt to cause or wait for an insurrection against the Taliban government,and then give it support and help the insurrectionists to start a new government ( and probably an American-aligned one,hopefully a democratic one).Such brutal dictatorships cannot last forever

[The Jamesian Republic]

In the other thread on the situation in Afghanistan there's some acceptance that one of the allies' main mistakes back when they originally defeated the Taliban c.20 years ago was not restoring the traditional (and, ny local standards, "moderate") monarchy, which had actually enjoyed considerable public support.

I’m in favor of that.

I also think that perhaps if the 1973 coup never happened maybe Afghanistan would have been a better place. If the progress the country made by 1973 continued perhaps Afghanistan could be on par with its fellow Central Asian nations.

[Page]

With the Taliban having taken over the country, the twin questions seem to be what should we do and what caused it.

It is my opinion that the answer to the second gives rise to the first.

When the Taliban were forced out of control 20 years ago, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the caves and mountains, organized, planned, and generally worked (with the clandestine help of outside powers) on plans to outlast the secularists to retake power.

When the secularists were forced out of power last week, they were in danger of death if they were apprehended, they were out of power, and they were in dire straits. They took to the airports and borders to ensure their safety. If the secularists really want to retake power, they need to look to the Taliban for the methods that work; running away is not one of them.

As to the first question, what we should do is the same thing as the Taliban supporters did for them. We should equip, on the sly, those forces that are willing to fight the Taliban in the same way as the Taliban fought them. Insurgency, terrorism, and guerilla warfare work well against an established government as we have seen. Let us see just how successful the Taliban are against their own tactics.

If, on the other hand, the only goal for the secular Afghan people is survival, then let them leave their people under Taliban rule. It is up to the Afghan people to decide their own fate.

Other opinions are, of course, welcomed and sought.

If I can I prefer not to answer the first question as I simply cannot.

Look,not an expert on these topics,so I may end up saying something stupid,but i still would like to say my opinion .


I think that,at the end of the day,little to nothing could've been done to stop the Taliban,if you see the nations who supported them,apart from Pakistan,they were all powerful nations:China,Russia,Iran and for some time even Saudi Arabia,so it is almost a guarantee that a militant force supported heavily by China and Russia is successful.
Also,the Afghan government forces were incompetent and corrupt,so it was basically a conflict between a corrupt and incompetent army teaming up with some Westerner soldiers to which was given the complicated ad almost impossible task of nation-building against a overall competent militant force fighting alongside some Middle-eastern ,Chinese and Russian soldiers who didn't have to build a nation but destroy it,which is an easier task.

Is all hope gone? I don't think so. Then what's my idea? My idea is to probably attempt to cause or wait for an insurrection against the Taliban government,and then give it support and help the insurrectionists to start a new government ( and probably an American-aligned one,hopefully a democratic one).Such brutal dictatorships cannot last forever

Annnnnd it's the year 2050 and those American-backed insurrectionists are selling preteen girls as sex slaves but no one in America cares because everyone is focused on the fact that those rebels just flew airplanes into One World Trade Center and the Hoover Dam. Then another invasion, then in 2070 the Taliban takes over again. But fortunately, there is a group of insurrectionists...

[The Jamesian Republic]

If I can I prefer not to answer the first question as I simply cannot.

Look,not an expert on these topics,so I may end up saying something stupid,but i still would like to say my opinion .


I think that,at the end of the day,little to nothing could've been done to stop the Taliban,if you see the nations who supported them,apart from Pakistan,they were all powerful nations:China,Russia,Iran and for some time even Saudi Arabia,so it is almost a guarantee that a militant force supported heavily by China and Russia is successful.
Also,the Afghan government forces were incompetent and corrupt,so it was basically a conflict between a corrupt and incompetent army teaming up with some Westerner soldiers to which was given the complicated ad almost impossible task of nation-building against a overall competent militant force fighting alongside some Middle-eastern ,Chinese and Russian soldiers who didn't have to build a nation but destroy it,which is an easier task.

Is all hope gone? I don't think so. Then what's my idea? My idea is to probably attempt to cause or wait for an insurrection against the Taliban government,and then give it support and help the insurrectionists to start a new government ( and probably an American-aligned one,hopefully a democratic one).Such brutal dictatorships cannot last forever

Annnnnd it's the year 2050 and those American-backed insurrectionists are selling preteen girls as sex slaves but no one in America cares because everyone is focused on the fact that those rebels just flew airplanes into One World Trade Center and the Hoover Dam. Then another invasion, then in 2070 the Taliban takes over again. But fortunately, there is a group of insurrectionists...

So it’s just a never ending cycle?

[Aggicificicerous]

3) The US never funded the Taliban, nor did it play any significant role in its creation. The Taliban should not be conflated with the mujahideen, who were a much larger, more ideologically heterogenous group. The Taliban's leaders were largely former mujahideen fighters, but none were especially prominent figures within the various mujahideen groups, and their main opponents were also former mujahideen and in some cases prominent leaders of the mujahideen.

Right, the US just assumed that after the war, all those trained and armed fighters would settle down and form a happy little society. How naive can you get?

Tune in next time for how the US' policy in Afghanistan was always informed more by the domestic political concerns of American politicians than by what was best for Afghanistan itself, why restoring the 1964 constitutional monarchy would have been a better option in 2001 than Hamid Karzai and the so-called Islamic Republic, and how Pakistan and the ISI continue to fuck everything up and get away with it scot-free.

A monarch would have been worse. You think the average Afghan cares about some jerkoff distantly related to a guy who was king 40 years ago? A monarch would have been as incompetent and corrupt as the elected government except without the veneer of democracy.

[Vikanias]

well the US caused their own doom in Afghanistan before they even arrived.


they funded the Taliban in the 80's during the Soviet invasion, and gave them all the materials they needed to be perfect in the terrain and much more. causing the extreme difficulty NATO soldiers had to go through.

[Great Algerstonia]

They should have put me in charge.

So true!

[Kubra]

also, fun fact since you mention local power-brokers, the US deliberately sidelined a good chunk of the local intellectual elite, the folks with bureaucratic resumes and inclinations, because they were too left-wing.

Not something I knew about. Where did you garner that info?

Pardon my lateness, can't shitpost too brazenly at work.
After a bit more poking, I may have made a bit of a misreading.
I was reading off the war nerd, let us reproduce that article:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08 ... istan.html
But let's look at the WaPo article and documents he's reading off of
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... -building/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... y_10222015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... 8_02092016
Actually, one of the quotes used by WN does not appear to, you know, actually appear in any of the pieces. A plan to replace the bureaucrats with pakistani's (lol) fell through, and the US had to work with the folks being derided as "too set in their ways".
In any case: what remains true is that a socialistic approach was generally preferred, but the US refused to work with that, not necessarily the actual suits filling the offices.

[The Land of the Ephyral]

well the US caused their own doom in Afghanistan before they even arrived.


they funded the Taliban in the 80's during the Soviet invasion, and gave them all the materials they needed to be perfect in the terrain and much more. causing the extreme difficulty NATO soldiers had to go through.

The Taliban did not exist in the 80s.

Operation Cyclone had been over for five years when the Taliban were founded. And the Taliban fought against the Mujahideen that the US did back in the 1980s.