08-22-2021, 02:56 AM
StoneHendge Wrote:Klem, if your government ever lets you out from underneath your beds again and you decide to make a trip to the states, I'd advise that you keep your travels to big cities in blue states.
Mate, thanks for your unsolicited advice and ignorance regarding my country.
Getting back to the topic, we had to get out of Afghan eventually. There are bigger fish to fry on the horizon and you don't want to be tying up troops and money on a failed quest with no clear mission, let alone end goal in sight. Try to look beyond your country's politics at the facts. The equipment that is now in the Taliban hands is not because you guys left it there to be found. It was the locals handing over the stuff you gave them. Handed to them originally in good faith along with training, but they let you down. Groups of tribal forces and the ANA; whose leadership were rarely paying their soldiers while lining their own pockets. Traditional Shia vs. Sunni Islam subordinated by ethnic rivalry - Pashtun vs. the Hazari minority. Then you have borderline criminals running the partner forces of our coalition. Even the Afhgan government was in on it. Karzai insisting on coalition forces only operating in daylight, plus his catch-and-release policy confounding efforts to bring bad guys to justice. We were uncommitted to total war fighting with one hand tied behind our back, using rules based ethics. These guys were gaming us. Throw down their radio put their hands up and wait it out. Say nothing and get paid $200 on release.
In hindsight what would you have done? Not the evacuation, we're talking about military hardware now in Talib hands. Convenient to say you have taken it forcefully back from the ANA while telling them you are about to leave? Those guys were never going to embrace democracy anda re as mercenary as they come.
As for 'hiding under the bed' - you've lost me completely on that one.