This is the real story of the Afghan biometric databases abandoned to the Taliban

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MrGuvernment

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so data mining caused them to get caught? mainly if google / apple leaks their database this type of thing will happen too.
 
I would care more if they defended their own country before giving up.
The civilians outnumber the Taliban. The army outnumbered the Taliban. There are hundreds of historical examples of cultures raging against oppressors. Hell even the FRENCH found ways to protest that were quite effective against conquerers. If the news was full of afghans firebombing Taliban positions or mobbing troops I'd care...

As it is the only people in this whole mess I care about are the translators/helpers because they did step up against their oppressors and deserve a second chance outside the hell pit of the sandbox.

Also to be clear I don't give a rats ass about the political parties associated with any of this.
 
I would care more if they defended their own country before giving up.
The civilians outnumber the Taliban. The army outnumbered the Taliban. There are hundreds of historical examples of cultures raging against oppressors. Hell even the FRENCH found ways to protest that were quite effective against conquerers. If the news was full of afghans firebombing Taliban positions or mobbing troops I'd care...

As it is the only people in this whole mess I care about are the translators/helpers because they did step up against their oppressors and deserve a second chance outside the hell pit of the sandbox.

Also to be clear I don't give a rats ass about the political parties associated with any of this.
If the Afghans had ever REALLY been trained, that would have been a more relevant point.
 
If the Afghans had ever REALLY been trained, that would have been a more relevant point.
Again historically this doesn't mean a damn thing.
The world has seen the pictures of the airport with thousands of people around and on an aircraft trying to take off... do you have any idea what that kind of power that large mob has with just their bodies and bare hands? That mass could have charged every Taliban position around that airport and beaten the insurgents to death with their own guns if they actually wanted their own freedom. The reason they didn't is because in their internal calculous of their minds a risk of death isn't worth freedom from the Taliban.

There are nearly 40 million afghans. History rather pointedly gives examples of how populations have absolutely routed military forces with sharpened sticks and fire. Hell, just a primer WW2 history will show you how civil resistance is done right.
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-19-15.pdf This is a publically accessible version of the USARMY field manual for dealing with crowds and riots. Read it. Should give you some depth as to how absolutely boned you are if you don't A]have an abundance of force or B]Lose psychological control. Mobs are TERRIFYING and if you've ever faced one that gun in your hands will not make you feel safe.

No one is resisting. Everyone is just begging everyone else to do something. No one is going to fight and die for your freedom until you are willing to do it first. Again... history is full of this.
 
I would care more if they defended their own country before giving up.

It doesn't really work that way in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is just a line on a map which has little relevance to the Afghans who live there. Their priority is to their family and tribe - there's no real concept of nationhood for them. They took jobs in the "army" because it was a steady paycheck with which to feed those closest to them, not because they want to secure their borders or have any sort of security from the likes of the Taliban.
 
If the Afghans had ever REALLY been trained, that would have been a more relevant point.

They were trained, but they lacked the will to fight. As Ersatz Nihilist correctly pointed out, there's no sense of national pride. They only care about their families and their tribes.

One thing that really pushed them into "meh" status was that because of the withdrawal, a lot of the Afghan "army" weren't getting paid. We were handling all of the machinery when it came to those guys getting paid, and they couldn't handle the system themselves. Not getting paid when you're in a rather cushy (for them) place does tend to de-incentivize you.
 
I would care more if they defended their own country before giving up.
The civilians outnumber the Taliban. The army outnumbered the Taliban. There are hundreds of historical examples of cultures raging against oppressors. Hell even the FRENCH found ways to protest that were quite effective against conquerers. If the news was full of afghans firebombing Taliban positions or mobbing troops I'd care...

As it is the only people in this whole mess I care about are the translators/helpers because they did step up against their oppressors and deserve a second chance outside the hell pit of the sandbox.

Also to be clear I don't give a rats ass about the political parties associated with any of this.

Kind of pointless to toss rocks at an MRAP.
 
I watched an interview last night on Amanpour and Company of an American woman who has been in Afghanistan for the entirety of our occupation, helping students there. My rough interpretation follows(watch it if you want to get the accurate story).
She said the reason the army faded away so quickly was because the USA hired the same militias that helped them beat the taliban as police and military. The problem was they very publicly and in humiliating ways shook down the young men of many communities on a regular basis, Kabul. She went on to say that anyone that knows Afghan men knows they are extremely proud people. So imagine being publicly shamed not once, not twice but repeatedly. It would make any proud man want to shoot that police officer. Many would actively join the taliban. They certainly weren't taking up arms to defend the same men that had been humiliating they and their families. The military and the men in it knew this. The talibans job was done long before the United States pulled out.
End of interview.

There's a hell of alot we don't have a clue about in Afghanistan. The biggest being its people and their culture. Big surprise there huh? That seems to be the largest repeat failure our government and milatary makes when we take on one of these so called country building escapades.
Being that each of the two major media groups has its own story to tell, i doubt very highly the truth about Afghanistan will be told anytime soon. Or listened to for that matter.
 
Kind of pointless to toss rocks at an MRAP.
Completely wrong. MRAPs die to molys all the time if the enemy targets the tires. Burn those suckers and you are no longer mobile.
Though that said just dig a soft pit and cover it. The Taliban are not trained enough to know an MRAP will tip at the slightest suggestion.

Hell TANKS die to smart moly usage. The only reason you didn't see M1s die was that our forces actually *shocker* have a system of support for deployed tanks. Molys are generally used to OBSCURE and IRRITATE as well as burn. Throw enough on a buttoned-up tank and get anything like a car wedged under it front and back and the crew has exactly 2 options. Burn or Open. No crunchies to support equal dead tank crew.

It's also like everyone under the age of 50 forgot about the whole afghans on horses killing so many soviets in guerrilla actions that they made the massively powerful soviets leave. This is why I repeatedly said HISTORY SHOWS US. The Afghans have already got a history of forming a mujahideen movement. The argument that we do not know their culture is also false. We've been in Afghanistan in some form or another for damn near 60 years. I already said I won't go into the politics because that is a whole layer of stupid and anyone who sticks even the smallest toe into that snakepit is going to lose IQ points. The point will always remain that the current Afghanistani people decided by popular vote that the Taliban are better than anyone else when they elected to offer no resistance to the coup.
 
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