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Originally Posted by corpus vile
You gotta wonder just wtf the US military were doing the past 20 years and if they even had troops outside the major cities or if they bothered training the Afghan military at all or bothered engaging in intel or strikes against Taliban positions, as the current situation indicates they didn't on all counts.
The problem with the ANA, the Afghan National Army, is that, a bit like the South Vietnamese Army in the early 1970s, it's dressed up to look like an army but it doesn't really exist as a fighting force. Huge sums have been poured into it, and US and British and other troops have spent years 'training' and 'mentoring' it, and it means nothing.
It's basically just a way for the corrupt Afghan leadership to con money out of the gullible foreigners. The troops don't get paid because the 'commanders' keep the money for themselves. And, almost worse, the troops don't have family support packages in place. If they're killed, their families are done for. So as soon as the Taliban show up, if there are no NATO troops or air power to sort it out, they're going to run away. They'd be daft not to.
So all the ANA's weaponry will now or shortly be in Taliban hands. As the Taliban are already funded and armed up to the nines (in light infantry terms) by Pakistan, they're pretty irresistible -- though only because most Afghans can't be bothered to resist them and always give in to them, even though the Taliban don't have serious heavy weaponry like armour or artillery or aircraft. And there isn't anything that outside powers can do about that. We're just going to have to let the Taliban take over again, then bomb them (because the great thing they don't have, and which even Pakistan won't give them, is air power).
Viewed from the West, it is quite interesting to see Biden tearing up his credentials and writing 'IDIOT' on his forehead in bright lipstick, though.
Last edited by 57 On Red; 08-14-2021 at 04:23 PM.