Rolling Afghanistan Thread

[sufi]

Access Denied: The Costs of Keeping the Afghan War out of the Media Spotlight - Modern War Institute

It is easier these days for journalists in Afghanistan to embed with the Taliban than with the US military. While the media and the military have long had a conflicted […]

mwi.usma.edu

this is a piece of writing that i loved

Paul Rogers is reliably really good on Afghanistan

Why the Isis hit on Boko Haram leader is a warning shot to global security

The terror group accelerates as it becomes clear that leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban’s control could backfire on the West

www.opendemocracy.net

His letters from "South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics" were brilliant back in the earlier days of the conflict - deeply knowledegable, fearless and even-handedly critical as well as humorous https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/war-through-raqqas-eyes/. It's tragic that the (real life organisation) Oxford Research Group folded last year.

 

[sufi]

Paul Rogers is reliably really good on Afghanistan

Why the Isis hit on Boko Haram leader is a warning shot to global security

The terror group accelerates as it becomes clear that leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban’s control could backfire on the West

www.opendemocracy.net

His letters from "South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics" were brilliant back in the earlier days of the conflict - deeply knowledegable, fearless and even-handedly critical as well as humorous https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/war-through-raqqas-eyes/. It's tragic that the (real life organisation) Oxford Research Group folded last year.

(Apologies @DannyL as Paul R is a MASSIVE Corbynist)

 

[shakahislop]

Paul Rogers is reliably really good on Afghanistan

Why the Isis hit on Boko Haram leader is a warning shot to global security

The terror group accelerates as it becomes clear that leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban’s control could backfire on the West

www.opendemocracy.net

His letters from "South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics" were brilliant back in the earlier days of the conflict - deeply knowledegable, fearless and even-handedly critical as well as humorous https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/war-through-raqqas-eyes/. It's tragic that the (real life organisation) Oxford Research Group folded last year.

I can't believe ISIS would hit on the Boko Haram leadership. I just don't think they'd be up for it to be honest, embarrassing for all involved

 

[sufi]

I can't believe ISIS would hit on the Boko Haram leadership. I just don't think they'd be up for it to be honest, embarrassing for all involved

I dunno, seemed plausible that they would a. enforce operational effectiveness & ideological purity by eliminating the loose cannon, and b. show which dog is biggest by eliminating the most famous jihadi in the area. their logic is not our logic but it is logic

 

[Leo]

I dunno, seemed plausible that they would a. enforce operational effectiveness & ideological purity by eliminating the loose cannon, and b. show which dog is biggest by eliminating the most famous jihadi in the area. their logic is not our logic but it is logic

I read @shakahislop's "hit on" comment as like a person hitting on another, chatting them up, flirting. not sure what's funnier, my possible misinterpretation or yours!

 

[sufi]

mind you i think man love is not unknown among taliban ❤️❤️

 

[shakahislop]

video of Eid prayers at the presidential palace, while Talib (I assume) rockets land nearby. this kind of vague rocketing in the general direction of the palace is fairly frequent, not that dangerous, but is interesting if you think about it as a taliban communications tool, ie, it is intended to generate images like this.

 

[sufi]

eid mubarak shaka jan!

 

[shakahislop]

This accelerated even further over the weekend. The Taliban have now taken eight of the 34 provincial capitals in the country, including Kunduz which is the 6th biggest city or something like that. I wake up and check Twitter and every day they've taken another one. My (surprisingly varied socio-economically and ethnically) group of friends in Kabul are starting to freak out.

It's very hard to predict what's going to happen, but my guess is that this kind of momentum is going to continue, and that it won't be long before the government collapses. That is a total guess and I'll probably be wrong, because no-one knows what's going to happen. If the government does collapse the best case scenario is probably that the Taliban take the rest of the country and form an orderly government. The worst case scenario is that the fighting degenerates into a million factions, with none being able to properly take power.

 

[sufi]

i think that's a good guess,
weirdly i still remember a feeling of optimism the last time that they got to this stage and afg was looking at being united (under the taliban) for the first time in a generation, they never quite got there though. It could be a good thing if there was no war in afghanistan.
i don't know whether the taliban are likely to split - they are still ethnically & religiously homogenous, i guess? i'm sure they could cook up some intra-pashtun rivalries, but i don't get the feeling they will be as bothered about dogma and takfirism as isis.
I wonder if there's any prospect of the current government facilitating an orderly handover of power (maybe avoiding fighting in Kabul), probably not while they still have b52s behind them

 

[yyaldrin]

what will happen though with everybody who worked for the afghan government or is active in the afghan army?

 

[sufi]

what will happen though with everybody who worked for the afghan government or is active in the afghan army?

well exactly

 

[Mr. Tea]

This accelerated even further over the weekend. The Taliban have now taken eight of the 34 provincial capitals in the country, including Kunduz which is the 6th biggest city or something like that. I wake up and check Twitter and every day they've taken another one. My (surprisingly varied socio-economically and ethnically) group of friends in Kabul are starting to freak out.

It's very hard to predict what's going to happen, but my guess is that this kind of momentum is going to continue, and that it won't be long before the government collapses. That is a total guess and I'll probably be wrong, because no-one knows what's going to happen. If the government does collapse the best case scenario is probably that the Taliban take the rest of the country and form an orderly government. The worst case scenario is that the fighting degenerates into a million factions, with none being able to properly take power.

In your opinion, did the US/UK invasion really buy anything other than a two-decade sort-of interregnum in what would otherwise have been uninterrupted Taliban control? I mean, in a year, will the country be in any way better off than if it had never happened?

 

[...]

Will we be marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by watching the Taliban reconquer the whole of Afghanistan?

 

[luka]

woops has killed over four afghans

 

[woops]

woops has killed over four afghans

it was either me or them.

 

[shakahislop]

I know there's at least one question from tea I haven't responded to but just quickly : today was an absolute disaster in Afghanistan. Impossible to know but the way things look I reckon they'll have taken Kabul in a couple of weeks. The government is totally collapsing, they've stopped fighting.

 

[Leo]

check out the "headlines" thread...

 

[version]

Do we think the Republicans are going to use this against Biden or will they stick to the "no more wars," rhetoric from the Trump era? Will there be a split?

 

[Clinamenic]

Just watched a Tammy Duckworth interview and she seemed more or less plainly against pulling out in the first place, maybe with some caveats. She seemed to be of the notion that the Afghan government just couldn't carry its own weight. Not sure how partisan an issue this intrinsically is, but yeah weaponizing it along party lines would be par for the course as far as I can tell.