The Fall of Kabul

Today, over 20 years of war, efforts, loss of life have gone to waste.
All my friends who serve in the Italian Army and Air Force, though today is a very higly regarded festivity here, were unanimously morally broke.
So do feel I myself…
Where is our western world going, my friends?
Is it possible to let all go to waste like this?
The rhetoric about human rights, democracy, freedom, equality…
Where are those who see discrimination everywhere, especially where there is none?
I feel like s…it today.
And I wasn’t even involved…

I would say that the "Western Allies" will find themselves in a position of having to go back into Afghanistan at some point in the future.

Someone on the news said it was like the fall of Saigon in 1975

Does Operation Frequent Wind ring a bell with the old boys....:confused:

Leaving a lot of stuff

Attachment 119402

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Originally Posted by RCS

Someone on the news said it was like the fall of Saigon in 1975

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Attachment 119403

Mixed feelings about this. History told us this was going to end exactly this way no matter how long we stayed. Knowing this, I was all for turning it into a glass parking lot and being done with it but that isn't the way we do things in a civilized world. A problem when the civilized world meets the uncivilized one.

I read an expert saying this was exactly the wrong time to leave. The three month delay put it right at the peak of traditional Taliban activity. They apparently don't do squat in the winter so a few months delay would have given the Afghan military time to unify and prepare without our assistance until the spring and summer of next year. I don't know if it's accurate or not but I do know that sneaking off in the middle of the night without telling anyone isn't conducive to a smooth transition.

Not sure if captured or surrendered Attachment 119404

History shows that Afghanistan doesn't change. Powers outside the area wanting either to conquer or help. British, Soviet, and now the West, went in and left, usually with considerable losses. Almost immediately it reverted to what it was. Include clandestine aid, training, etc from the West during the Soviet occupation and it becomes even more involved.
Afghanistan was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Soviet empire.

Spare a thought for all those who embraced the western culture, in teaching young and older children in those last 20 years, making them realise what we valued in Democratic societies!!

It is those teachers now who face and uncertain future, and will sadly be fighting for their lives!

The millions of Dollars and Pounds and Euros spent to train their Police/Army and Air Force have IMHO been wasted as they clearly step away from any acknowledgement of wearing a uniform in search of democracy and peace.

Maybe the Taliban have changed in that 20 years, only time will tell.
I lost a lot of good friends in 2 PARA in that country, and 2 PARA are back there today as the UK's QRF at the airport and Embassy.................was it, and is it worth any losses one has to ask???

We view Afghanistan from a Western perspective, culture, background, etc. That doesn't mean we are right. It doesn't mean we are wrong either. It probably means we don't understand.
Like what happened in Iran when the shah left.

History should allow us to understand that whilst the principles of democracy are what we go by they are out of place in certain parts of the world and despite the good intentions or military might ploughed into the country they just go to ground and wait us out.
Pacification & unification, right - wrong who knows its clouded and the many headed snake will be as perineal as the grass its the gate that will probably see that other mob gear up and re assert itself its like a pin wheel going around.

What can we do in the West issue certain sympathetic peoples with 1,000,000 plus sunblock and tell them not to look at the flash! I think its cruel that good men from free willed countries have given it all and to what end, tears for those left at home and poor moral questioning as what was it all for.
These so called peoples who b*stardise religion killing people for basically not believing in what they do will haunt us for eons its like the dark ages and the knights Templars.
We cannot go and give them glass country sides as there are the innocents to consider and besides to many arms dealers are making a squillion from these conflicts we could say the famous saying "Kill'em all and let God sort them out" but that makes us no better than they are.
Also spare a thought for the interpreters and so on who actively put people away helping the coalition forces their families along with themselves will have very short days.

The previous president made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Members of the Afghani government were not involved.

Pretty obvious this was going to happen. The farmer made a deal with the fox to stop watching the chicken coop. Who would be surprised the fox took over? I think even the chickens saw that coming…but they weren’t consulted.

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Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

Spare a thought for all those who embraced the western culture, in teaching young and older children in those last 20 years, making them realise what we valued in Democratic societies!!

It is those teachers now who face and uncertain future, and will sadly be fighting for their lives!

The millions of Dollars and Pounds and Euros spent to train their Police/Army and Air Force have IMHO been wasted as they clearly step away from any acknowledgement of wearing a uniform in search of democracy and peace.

Maybe the Taliban have changed in that 20 years, only time will tell.
I lost a lot of good friends in 2 PARA in that country, and 2 PARA are back there today as the UK's QRF at the airport and Embassy.................was it, and is it worth any losses one has to ask???

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Well said Gil, I was moved by the astonishing courage of the female minister of education, who defiantly remained at her post yesterday...

I gravely doubt she saw the sun rise today ...

It was sadly always going to end this way eventually, the mission creep during 2002, from removing the terrorist threat from Afghanistan, shifted to nation building and we were doomed from that point...

An open ended commitment, with no exit strategy. My thoughts go out today for all the widow's and families of veterans who fell in Afghanistan, all who carry injuries for life, physical and mental scars... To the woman of Afghanistan, who will suffer the most as that dark regime crushes hope and freedom.

What a terrible mess...

On the news today film of absolute bedlam they were clinging to the outside of a USAF cargo plane as it taxied out evacuating US personnel goodness knows if they cleared them off the plane before take off.
I guess orders are orders but yes the scenes are exactly like the ones we witnessed all those years ago with Saigon falling. So very sad.

They didn’t clear them. Just saw a video where you see people falling from the plane after take-off…

"Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy".

why did we not wait until the winter for this? Every lowely private even knew that most of the Taliban go home and sit by the campfire all winter long (unless of course we continued to seek them out), and that pattern of fighting in the summer, and going home to the village in the winter, has been going on every year for 2000 years or more? how can we be this stupid...again?

At least they’re not pushing million dollar aircraft off the aircraft carriers into the ocean to make room for the next one.

Sadly more Opium coming to our shores...........to fund their ill gotten gains!!!

Now all the women and girls of Afghanistan will have to suffer the consequences of what has happened.

The UK has been "into Afghanistan" a number of times in the past and it has never ended well. I fully expect that we will have to "go into Afghanistan" again with our allies at some point in the future. It maybe in 5 years, 50 years, or 150 years time, who knows?

The obvious alternative to what is happening now is for the Western Allies to go back into Afghanistan fully now. If we have to do it at a later date it could prove much more difficult and costly.

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Originally Posted by Fushigi Ojisan

Originally Posted by RCS
Someone on the news said it was like the fall of Saigon in 1975

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Amazon.com: Goodnight Saigon: The True Story of the U.S. Marines Last Days in Vietnam: 9780425224021: Henderson, Charles: Books
Excellent book on the subject.
Seems as though cannot impose freedom upon those who do not seek it.
Certain there are some there who do seek it and pray they find it. I suppose those who lost their lives falling from our aircraft truly sought freedom. Pray those who lost their lives. limbs, innocence in an effort to bring peace and a chance for freedom find peace themselves.

Something doesn't stack up........it was "us" that put the Taliban in there to run the country in 1997............so what went wrong.

One poem that rings in my ears is the poem from Rudyard Kipling and sums this current situation up, which he wrote after OUR last fiasco in the early 1800's, and one that so many highly equipped nations like ours should take heed of for the future:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

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Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

so what went wrong.

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It became a terrorist training ground and safe haven plus a multitude of other problems such as an epicentre for Optimum production amongst other things.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

On the news today film of absolute bedlam they were clinging to the outside of a USAF cargo plane as it taxied out evacuating US personnel goodness knows if they cleared them off the plane before take off.
I guess orders are orders but yes the scenes are exactly like the ones we witnessed all those years ago with Saigon falling. So very sad.

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Cinders-- The video of the C17 taking off with people dropping off to their deaths will be the defining moment of our involvement in Afghanistan. I still remember the fall of Saigon. My late father had serve two years in Vietnam and cursed for days afterwards. I remember South Vietnam had the sixth largest standing Army in the world at the time and the country fell in 10 days. I remember a news cast of an American LST dropping off a ship load of 105mm howitzers and ammunition just before the fall of Saigon. It did not stop the March to Saigon. All for nothing, lost of lives, friends and national treasure. I can only say that I fought and looked out for my troops to get home. Screw the politicians. You politicians are going to fight the next one!! Sorry to rant!!

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Originally Posted by fjruple

I can only say that I fought and looked out for my troops to get home. Screw the politicians.

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I concur with your sentiments but you'll be hard pressed in todays world to find a pollie willing to take up the fight, although Putin may as he is ex Speznatz.

I saw those little shapes drop off the aircraft how sad it felt watching that unfold its amazing that the aircraft got off at all apparently had 680 souls on board imagine the load master calculating that one out I did see that it appeared allot of males in the group.
I feel for all you guys that have been directly involved in that area or anywhere else you were sent, it appears now that a few 0000's troops are being rushed back in to do what I do not know as the Taliban now have extra arms and hi tech gear that was ditched, all we can do is see what transpires.

April 30, 1975 After the fall of Saigon, Senator J. William Fulbright announced that he was “no more depressed than I would be about Arkansas losing a football game to Texas.”

June 7, 2021 on Afghanistan falling to the Taliban, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, "If there is a significant deterioration in security, I don't think it's going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday."

July 8, 2021, President Joe Biden, "There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy … of the United States from Afghanistan."

Do you suppose the good people of Taiwan might question what an American promise is worth?

I read an article about the last shot of the Vietnam war. The story was that a Navy vessel took off the last U.S. troops to leave Vietnam. Saigon had already fallen. No-one was left. These folks were in a tiny pocket on the coast, surrounded by NVA. When the ship got a few hundred yards off the shore, the NVA fire a single round. It landed directly in the ships wake, a couple of hundred feet back. An Army officer who had been rescued said that the artillery batteries that they had been fire on by while onshore were extremely accurate and clearly could have hit the ship if they wanted to. It was his opinion that the NVA knew they were the last and just lobbed a shell out close enough to say, "We could have gotten you if we had wanted to," in order to add insult to injury.

Bob

I don't mean to sound disrespectful to the Taliban but will they have the intelligence to actually make use of all the sophisticated military equipment that they have just acquired? On the news there appeared to be what looked like almost new A.P.C.'s parked up at the side of the road and a "fighter" "wearing" what was described as a "Special Forces Helmet". It would be very interesting to see an inventory of exactly what kit the Taliban has got it's hands on now and also what it does with it.

Never underestimate the Taliban.......they have very good training from the Chinese, and relative weapons to keep them up to date, with their numbers swollen by those who were trained by U.S and UK Forces to a "good" standard.
They have the infrastructure and knowledge to compete against the best, especially as so much has been dropped into their laps.
They took the country at speed against ALL odds and intelligence, leaving many coalition countries leaving highly sophisticated equipment behind, causing the Taliban to ensure non of it "walked" before they got their hands on it, by their countrymen.
The next few weeks will determine their strategy, and from that, how other groups like Al-Qaeda will come into focus, who are a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organisation, widely regarded as mainly terrorist orientated, founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War, and what kicked this all off after 9/11.

The issue will be whether the Taliban, allow them to operate from the safety of the country to launch their attacks from there on western countries...................WAIT OUT!!

The Chinese have already recognized the Taliban and their military attaches will be all over whatever US equipment they can lay their hands on as soon as possible. The Chinese have proven themselves very adept at stealing, reverse engineering, and then producing clones of Western technology at whatever level of quality the customer can afford.

.Attachment 119516

Ozymandias
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

---------- Post added at 05:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:09 PM ----------

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Originally Posted by old tanker

The Chinese have already recognized the Taliban and their military attaches will be all over whatever US equipment they can lay their hands on as soon as possible. The Chinese have proven themselves very adept at stealing, reverse engineering, and then producing clones of Western technology at whatever level of quality the customer can afford.

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The Chinese, Russians, North Koreans and Iranians were probably sorting thru the super secret US and allied gear and making bids before Biden had his ice cream on Marine 1...

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Originally Posted by Lee Enfield

super secret US and allied gear

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The question is how much secret/advanced technology kit was supplied in the first place and how much remains in the country?

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

The question is how much secret/advanced technology kit was supplied in the first place and how much remains in the country?

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Pretty much anything and everything. Much with the new still on it.

Taliban seizes US military equipment including drones, humvees and MRAPs

Someone please confirm, but is that not a Hind helicopter in the main picture? If so it may have been helpful if the article had pointed out that the helicopter was Russian made.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

Someone please confirm, but is that not a Hind helicopter in the main picture? If so it may have been helpful if the article had pointed out that the helicopter was Russian made.

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The picture looks like an Mi-24A (Hind B)

Yes a Russian helicopter which most people, having read the article, will probably have assumed was an American made helicopter.

I trust you have more trust in your armed forces than many of you are displaying right now in this forum?

I dare say that there is a lot if trust in the Armed Forces themselves… what’s lacking is the trust in the politicians who take(?) the decisions…

As Machiavelli wrote, place not your trust in your prince.

Machiavelli is always despised...but also always right.
Humankind has not changed in the centuries.

Alright, folks. Let's keep the discussion clear of politics, as per the forum rules. Thank you kindly.

Bob

Good Luck to 2 and 3 PARA and 82nd Airborne at Kabul Airport......................God speed!

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...87899984-1.jpg

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Originally Posted by old tanker

Biden's Fine Dining

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He may be the waiter, but Trump wrote the menu.

"Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible."

And

"I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. They couldn’t stop the process, they wanted to but couldn’t stop the process.”

I share this simply because I 115% agree that 21 years is enough. People cheered Trump when this agreement was reached. They cheered him when he said "21 years is enough." And now they curse Biden for pulling out. Just...amazing. Partisanship and misinformation is ruining this country and I'm so sick of seeing it.

During the Taliban News conference yesterday, as their "spokesman" was speaking I was fully expecting the tip of his nose to suddenly shoot forward, Pinocchio fashion, and his nose to become several times longer.

No? Can't stay off politics? Closed.


Bob